


All I Ask Of You

by skeletonwrites



Category: Throne of Glass Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Military, Angst, Angst and Fluff and Smut, Daddy Kink, F/F, F/M, M/M, Smut, Toxic Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-13
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-20 15:01:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 37,024
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20229793
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skeletonwrites/pseuds/skeletonwrites
Summary: This started out as a series of drabbles on my blog that slowly but surely got longer and now i’m Posting it here! Enjoy!





	1. End of the Affair

**Author's Note:**

> Living without her  
Living at all  
Seems to slow me down  
Living forever  
Hell, I don’t know  
Do I care, do I care  
The thunder’s rumbled sound.  
End of the Affair // Ben Howard

“Aelin?” His voice rang through their apartment as he entered, dropping his bags by the door. Rowan had been off on deployment for the last nine months, hadn’t seen his girlfriend in four months since he’d managed to have a four day weekend and he flew home from the wastes to see her while he could. It had initially been planned that she would pick him up from the airport, but two days ago she had sent him an email that she couldn’t, and asked if he could get a ride with Fenrys back to the apartment complex. It hadn’t been a problem at all, Fen hadn’t minded a single bit.

As he moved through their apartment, he became more and more confused. Their living was half packed into boxes, and upon peering into one of them he discovered that it was her stuff that filled them. His stuff, what little of it he actually had, was still where it had always been.

They had lived in this apartment for five years and had been dating for seven. The both of them were in the military, but Aelin was stationed and doing a lot of work within Terrasen. Rowan had always been deployed elsewhere because he kept signing up for new deployments, never opting to stay home. He liked to travel, liked to feel like he was doing good work on a more broad of a scale. Aelin loved her country so much that she liked to make Terrasen better from wherever she was able, bonus points if she got to stay in Orynth and see her nephews grow.

“Fireheart?” He tried again, slipping between two towers of boxes and into their bedroom where Aelin stood with her back to him, an open suitcase on the bench at the foot of the bed as she packed clothing away. “Baby, what’s going on?” It was then that she stilled, turning her head slightly to look at him over her shoulder.

“I’m leaving, Rowan.”

“Where are you being deployed?” At that, she snorted, a huff of a laugh following soon after as she turned with her arms folding across her chest. Her eyes were bloodshot and swollen, emphasizing their unusual coloring, her cheeks puffy and red. Aelin had been crying, and from the looks of it, she’d been crying hard. Even her eyes were puffy.

“I’m not leaving the country, I’m leaving you.” Her eyes met his then, her lips pursed. She nodded, but it seemed to be mostly to herself than for his benefit. His phone slipped out of his hand and he started to shake his head.

“What are you-”

“I was pregnant. You got me pregnant. And I was going to tell you when you got home but I miscarried last week,” her voice became thicker the more she talked, thick and heavy, her face crumpling as fresh tears started to fall. “I need you. I needed you and you,” she shoved him, “weren’t,” another shove, “here.” A final shove to his chest and he stumbled back a few steps, but reached out for her. Aelin completely recoiled, shaking her head at him. There was a loud ringing in his ears, a ringing he couldn’t quite force out of his mind. “Don’t touch me.”

“Baby-”

“Don’t call me that. For years, Rowan, I have been begging you to stop going on the deployments. Focus on our relationship. Marry me. You won’t even propose. So how I even managed to delude myself into thinking that the baby would be a good thing for us anyway is so fucking beyond me,” she laughed then, but it was empty. It was painful to hear, especially considering the words that had come before it. “You don’t really want me. I think you think you do but you don’t otherwise choosing me when I asked wouldn’t have been hard. You don’t want me so I’m letting you go.”

“Aelin-”

“And the worst part is that I love you anyway!” Another dead laugh from her mouth, this time her head falling back to look at the ceiling as though she were trying to make the tears sink back into her head. “Gods I love you and I’m not even a priority on your list. If I’m on it, I’m at the bottom and it’s, bullshit and I deserve better. Because I needed you,” she said again, stressing the word needed. “I need you and you weren’t here. You weren’t here. And if you had just skipped out on this deployment like I begged you to, you would have been and maybe we wouldn’t this would be a different conversation but you weren’t here and I went through waking up in my own blood by myself. I went through losing our child by myself.”

It was quiet then, the silence so thick and heavy that it was stifling. It was suffocating. Rowan felt like he couldn’t breathe. Tears soaked his cheeks but he wasn’t even sure when he started crying. Rowan had never felt the physical ache and loss that he felt in his chest that he felt right now. It felt like someone was breaking every single rib open to tear out his physical heart. If he didn’t know better, he might genuinely believe he was having a heart attack the ache was so strong.

“Please don’t leave me. Please, Aelin, I love you. You have to know that-”

“How would I know that, Rowan? What have you done to show me that you love me in the last two years?” Her arms were thrown wide as she enunciated her point, and he scrambled to think of a single moment where he had shown her, had made her feel like he loved.

“If you want to get married, we can get married, Aelin, please, I-” Another joyless laugh from her lips, more heavy tears falling down her cheeks.

“I don’t want you to marry me because it’s a last ditch effort to keep me from leaving you. I want you to marry me because you love me so much that you can’t imagine it any other way. That’s all I have ever wanted, Rowan. For you to love me. But you don’t.” He did. Gods above, he did. If he could just get to his bags -

But she was pushing passed him, bumping his shoulder on the way out of the room, her arms wrapped around herself so tightly that it was like she was trying to not fall completely apart.

“I’ll come back from my stuff when you’re not here. Just let me know when that is.” And then she was out the door. It didn’t even slam, though he thought it would have been better if it did. The quiet closing was somehow worse because it showed that she had been thinking about doing this for some time, even if that was only a week.

Rowan stumbled back out into the living room, falling to his knees at his bags that he had left by the door. Numbly he dug through the pockets, his fingers finally closing around the small box that rest at the bottom. When he flipped open the lid, the emerald ring inside glistened in the sun that streamed in through the window. It seemed to mock him - so he closed the box and threw it so hard across the room that it dented the drywall.

He did love her that much. He just realized it too late.


	2. Honest

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If I gave you control would you say that we could’ve saved it?  
Honest // The Neighbourhood

Sweat was dripping in rivers down his back, his shirt sticking just about everywhere. It was a brutally hot day, the breeze not offering any sort of alleviation from the desert heat. They had spent the morning doing absolutely nothing but trying to stay out of the sun, tried to stay in the cool safety of their base camp, but it was more like a shack in a shanty town anyway, the village they were staying in was impoverished and lacked many of the luxuries of home.

Rowan walked across the mostly empty street, save for the kids at the end playing with a soccer ball Fenrys had leant to them. They all shouted and waved at Rowan, who lifted a hand in greeting and offered them a rare smile before he disappeared into Lorcan’s quarters, rapping his knuckles on the wooden door.

“You wanted to see me?” He asked his commander, who was hardly ranked above him, but they needed a leader and Lorcan was great for the job. Rowan didn’t want it, anyway. The dark haired man didn’t even bother looking up from his papers, a battery operated fan blowing the hair that hung around his face.

“Yeah, have a seat. Anything new from the Twins?” He asked as he continued to scrawl notes across a file. Rowan shook his head. Fenrys and Connall were doing recon a few towns over, the six of their small team of black ops men rotating to gather information about whatever it was that Perrington was up to. They typically went in pairs, the twins always being the most successful when they were together. “I didn’t think so, just wanted to double check.”

“Is that all you needed?”

“No, actually. We’re getting a new recruit. We will officially be a team of seven as of tomorrow morning,” Lorcan said, finally moving his eyes to meet Rowan’s. Rowan nodded, folding his arms across his chest. They had been a group of six for several years, all of them working so well together that no one had bothered to rock the dynamic. Nobody had been quite good enough to join ranks with them anyway, and having an even number of people was nice.

“Who is the lucky lad?” Rowan scratched at his brow, silently wondering why they were adding a new person to their team now. The six men, or the Cadre as his ex had referred to them, were unparalleled in skill. They were the six most deadly people probably on the entire planet, all of them over six feet and corded with muscle. Their fighting ability wasn’t limited to guns and hand to hand combat. All of them could kill with just about anything, Rowan most original thus far having been a table, but he knew Lorcan had killed someone with a paper clip and a shoe string. They all had their weapons of choice, guns being the easiest in a modern war, but they weren’t always the most ideal.

The twins were the sniper duo that could change the tides of a war if a shot needed to be made from a distance. They were quick and quiet, Fenrys having impeccable skill with a rifle and Connall being quick on his feet when it came to calculations that Fenrys would need to make the perfect shot. Gavriel, the Lion the called him, was a legend in terms of stealth killing, earning his nickname because he snuck up on his enemies like a lion taking down their pray: quickly and silently. Rowan, second in command in the cadre, was unparalleled in hand to hand combat. It didn’t matter what weapon he had or didn’t have, it didn’t matter what weapon his opponents had – he always walked away from the fight. Vaughan tended to be a jack of all trades. He could learn new skills incredibly quickly, and could fly a plane or a chopper if they needed to and coudln’t afford to go outside the cadre for backup. Last but not least, Lorcan was six foot two inches of brute strength, and if he and Rowan teamed up on someone the fight was over in minutes, in seconds. The cadre was a force to be reckoned with, was legendary across the world. You never wanted to be hunted down by the Cadre. And until now, nobody had wanted to mess with the balance.

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” Lorcan’s tone was grave as he leaned forward on his forearms, lips pressed in a thin line. Rowan quirked a brow, starting to get a little worried about the cadre rookie that would be arriving soon. “Not lad. Lass.”

“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” Rowan immediately spat, knowing exactly who would be joining their team. Her name had been muttered so much lately, had as good as been praised by the gods themselves. She had been in the military for the last nine years, coming up on her tenth, and she had risen through the ranks quickly. Lately, she’d received so many awards he had lost count, at this point only being a few metals behind him. More recently she had become the first woman to become a Navy SEAL, and now she was being placed with the highest ranking SEAL team, the most skilled men in the entirety of the military. It wasn’t just a woman. It was _the _woman. “Don’t fucking say it Salvaterre.”

“Aelin Galathynius arrives tomorrow.”


	3. heartless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Somewhere far along this road, he lost his soul  
To a woman so heartless  
How could you be so heartless?  
Heartless // Kanye West

The six men all stood in a line at attention, feet shoulder-width apart, hands clasped behind their backs. They were each wearing white shirts with their camouflaged, Navy issued pants, the camouflage being a multi-cam pattern that was in various shades of muted greens and browns. When the humvee pulled up, the door swung open, and a woman hopped out of the vehicle, her hair blowing in the warm breeze. She turned and grabbed her bag, hitching it up on her shoulder and reaching back into the humvee, fist bumping the two other people inside that they had been with her on the drive in. She laughed at something before she shut the door and turned, facing the line of men.

“Aelin Galathynius,” Lorcan said as she came to a stop before them. Out of respect, she took a moment to salute her new commander. The corner of her mouth twitched as she looked at each of them, her eyes locking with Rowan’s as she dropped into a deep bow, hands out wide to the sides in a dramatic entrance. Technically, she should have saluted the rest of the men as well, but nobody expected that of her. If anything, they expected her to bypass any formalities because this was surely a pit stop on her way to being commander of the Cadre. There had been whispers, whispers that Aelin was sure Rowan and Lorcan both were fuming about, but she didn’t want the job. Not yet, anyway.

“At your service,” she quipped, straightening just as Rowan rolled his eyes and walked away from the line, shoving his hands into the pockets of his pants. Aelin, too, rolled her eyes letting her eyes shift from his back to the man that stood next to him in line. Fenrys Moonbeam spread his arms wide, a lazy grin spreading across his face which led to Aelin screaming as she charged at him, launching herself into his arms and hugging him tightly, her feet dangling off the ground. “I missed you so much. The most out of anyone.”

“More than you missed Whitethorn?” And that remark had Aelin smacking his shoulder as her feet came in contact with the ground.

“He still a bitter asshole?”

“He’s worse,” Fenrys said, taking her bag off her shoulders and throwing it over his own. Aelin let out a low whistle and she moved to hug his twin brother, then Gavriel and Vaughan.

“I’ll spare you the pure ecstasy of hugging me, Salvaterre, only because I know that you missed me less than I missed you.” Following suit of Rowan moments earlier, rolling his eyes and leaving Aelin and the other three men to walk down to their ramshackle housing at the end of the street.

“We cleared out a room for you,” Lorcan said over his shoulder, to which Aelin started shaking her head.

“I don’t need special treatment because I’m a woman. I can share,” but Lorcan was already disappearing into his housing, and Fenrys merely offered the small space of their living and sleeping quarters, where Rowan was already pouring the contents of an MRE into a bowl. Fenrys tossed her bag onto couch and they all began grabbing their own dinners. Rowan was the first to drop into the table, Aelin shortly after, choosing to plop into the seat next to him. He tensed, and Aelin tilted her head to the side, surveying him like she was going to pounce.

“So, what, are you going to give me the silent treatment?” She nudged his arm with her elbow, trying to get him to look at her, he finally did, barely turning to face her, giving her a once over. The audacity. Like he had any right to decide anything about the state of their relationship. He’d lost that right when he started to check himself out of their relationship, when he stopped being present, when he kept going on deployments despite her begging him not to go. 

“I’m thinking about it,” he drawled, turning back to take a bite of his food as everyone else joined the table, falling into a steady conversation, Vaughan at one point saying something about his penis and shooting an apologetic look to Aelin, who snorted and leaned back in her chair.

“What do you miss most about civilian life?” Fen asked, nudging her foot under the table. Aelin pursed her lips, tapping them with her finger as she considered.

“Sleeping in my silk nightgowns. I can deal with the food but I miss my high thread count sheets and my silk nightgowns.”

“Can you, you know, not share intimate details with the table?” Rowan asked from beside her, gripping his fork so tightly she expected it to snap in half. Aelin quirked a brow at him, turning in her seat to face him fully. What kind of sexist ass bullshit was he trying to pull?

“_Can you not share intimate details,” _she mocked._ “_Fuck off, Rowan. You’ve literally been inside me it doesn’t get much more intimate than that. If you guys can talk about your penises while I’m trying to eat, I can mention _sleepwear. _Sleepwear that I happen to remember you being **very **fond of,” Aelin rolled her eyes as she spoke, pinching the underside of his bicep, only for Rowan to get up from the table and drop his dishes in the sink, then move to one of the doors, only for Lorcan to come inside and stop him.

“Not so fast. We’ve been reassigned from the Wastes. We get to participate in city life. We’ve been assigned to a case in Rifthold, and it’s your lucky day, Whitethorn. You and Galathynius get to be married.”

Aelin’s fork clattered out of her hand and hit the floor with a loud _clang!_


	4. Nicotine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Damn your kiss and the awful things you do  
You’re worse than nicotine  
Nicotine // Panic! At the Disco

The house they were working out of wasn’t a house at all. It was a manor house in the countryside, far enough away from the general population that no one would know that seven people were living there. It had five rooms, Rowan and Aelin were stuck sharing as they were to be married after all. The house came with its own staff, who were sworn to secrecy and signed their actual lives away. If they were to tell anyone about the undercover operation going on behind the manor’s doors, their lives were as good as forfeit. 

It had been a week since they received their reassignment, a week of Rowan and Aelin full out bickering much to the dismay of everyone else on the team. Lorcan was starting to regret his acceptance of Aelin to the Cadre. She was and always had been a good asset in anything she did, she was always the top of her class no matter what class it may be, but she had always always worn on his nerves, and this last week was no acception. It had been worse, because not only was Aelin high strung, but she had Rowan so tightly wound that he was downright snappy to everyone within reach. To be fair, however, everyone got on Lorcan’s nerves — not just Aelin. Fenrys was a close second.

Aelin had gone up to bed a few minutes before Rowan and was already in one of her silk nightgowns that she had ranted about missing so much. This one was black with black lace trim. Simple, elegant, stunning. Not that Rowan cared. When he came up for bed, he’d rolled his eyes before disappearing into the bathroom. The steady stream of water told her that he was showering, and it took her longer than she cared to admit to be at an acceptable level of comfort in the bed before he emerged. She was propped up on pillows with a book in her hand, thick rimmed glasses low on her nose. Rowan’s eyes raked over her body as he loosed a sigh and moved toward the bed.

“This is weird,” he said, slipping beneath the sheets and laying on his back, eyes locked on the ceiling fan that had been added with renovations for the team.

“Sharing a bed with me again after two years or being married, albeit for a cover, despite you not wanting to marry me?” She quipped, not moving her eyes from the page of her book. Her glasses had slipped slightly further down her nose and several strands of her golden hair had fallen loose from the mop of a bun that was twisted on top of her head. One of the thin, silk straps of her nightgown had fallen over her shoulder, and the hem of her nightgown had ridden up enough that he could see the lace of her panties clinging to her hips where the blanket didn’t cover. Beside her, Rowan was tense as he turned to lay on his side.

“We’re not doing this tonight.”

“Then what are we doing?” She looked at him, a brow raised behind her glasses.

“Sleeping.”

“Is that all?” She finally closed her book and took off her glasses, laying both items on her end table as she sunk down into the sheets. Her nightgown rose up over her hips, her tanned skin glowing beneath the dark silk. Her eyes shifted down to his lips, then back to his eyes. Rowan’s tongue darted from his mouth, wetting his lips as he gave her a curt nod.

“Yep,” and then he rolled over, fluffing his pillow beneath his head. Aelin let out a huff of a sigh and rolled over, forcing herself to count sheep, and not think about Rowan, until she fell asleep.

~*~

Despite the empty seats available when she came down for breakfast, she opted instead to drop down onto Fenrys’s lap, swiping a strawberry off his plate as she read the file he held in his hand. He didn’t think twice, merely rested his hand on her hip as she snacked off his plate. Aelin tapped a pair of names in the folder.

“Is this our cover?” she asked through a mouthful of food, not missing the look that Rowan shot her from across the table. She shifted her eyes to his and slowly opened her mouth, extending her tongue to show him the chewed strawberries that lie there. Something dark flickered in his gaze as he rolled his eyes and looked away, taking a sip of his plain, black coffee.

“Mhm, you and Rowan are now Lord William and Lady Tessa Herondale. Lord William over here needs to dye his hair a darker shade of blonde. You, my love, have to become a redhead,” Fen said, shifting her fake passport to lay open in front of her. All they needed to do was take the photos once their hair was colored.

“Red? Seriously?” Across the table, Rowan snorted. Out of impulse, she grabbed the bowl of sugar and dumped it into his coffee.

“Are you kidding?” He said flatly, and Aelin shrugged a shoulder, flipping the hood of her hoodie up as she finally moved from Fenrys’s lap to a seat at the table. At the end of the table, Vaughan huffed a laugh, quickly trying to cover it up with a cough when Rowan glared at him. If anything, it made Aelin more smug. She’d effectively won the children in the divorce, save for Lorcan.

“I suppose,” she drawled, leaning back to kick her feet up on the table, “that this will work for living out my ‘Little Mermaid’ fantasies. Fen, will you be Prince Eric?” Next to her, Fenrys turned to face her, a wicked grin on his face.

“I’ll be anything you want, Princess.”


	5. Homecoming.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Descending, I’m spinning, lost all defense   
How could you swallow me again?  
I left you, I meant to, couldn’t let you in  
Never mind a single word I said  
Homecoming // Hey Monday

Aelin’s fingers were tangled in Fenrys’s golden locks as she massaged black hair dye into his hair. She was sighing mournfully as she did because the natural color of his hair was stunning. Now, with dark hair he would look identical to Connall to the untrained eye. Aelin was as sad about Fenrys’s as she was her own, which was now a natural sort of red. It was a little muddy, a little brown-ish, and completely normal, ordinary. Nothing like her own golden hair was. Lorcan had made a joke about cutting it and she had nearly had a heart attack, and now kept anxiously looking over her shoulder when the commander was around. “There,” she said, clipping the tangled curls up on of his head and popping a processing cap over it. Rowan was around the house somewhere, his own hair being colored a boring, soft shade of brown that didn’t do him any favors, and she was glad of it. Anything to make him more unattractive, she was happy with. Connall, Lorcan, Rowan, and Vaughan had all opted to grow out their facial hair; that being the only disguise that Lorcan, Connall, and Vaughan were even bothering with. Fenrys would keep his face clean shaven, at Aelin’s request because he was too pretty to ruin it with scruff. Rowan had rolled his eyes as Aelin dropped a kiss on Fen’s cheek before she’d run upstairs to get started coloring her own hair.

“Aelin?” Rowan’s voice called down the hall, prompting Aelin to drop her forehead down onto Fenrys’s shoulder. He reached up and patted her hand then squeezed it as she moved toward the door, keeping his hold on his hand until their hands slipped from each other. She made her way down the hall, taking her time and kicking at the marble flooring until she took the two steps up to their bedroom door. When he saw her, he froze, pressing his lips into a thin line and narrowing his eyes. Aelin prepared herself for a lecture, for an argument, but all he said was, “Hey.”

“Hi?” It came out like a question, her confusion plain as day on her face. Her brow was furrowed, nose slightly crinkled. His hair was darker than she’d thought it would be, not the dingy shade of light brown she’d anticipated.

“I was going to cut my hair and I was wondering if you’d help me,” he said, shaking his head a bit for emphasis. It wasn’t as long as it’d once been - when they’d dated there was a point where it had been passed his shoulders. Now, it barely brushed them, and was a dark, almost chocolate brown that made the pine green of his eyes more intense somehow. “Without fucking it up.” The corners of Aelin’s lips twitched as she nodded toward the bathroom, gesturing for him to sit at the vanity at the bathroom counter. Rowan pulled his shirt over his head, rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck as he did.

“Relax. I’m cutting your hair, not about to kick your ass in a sparring match,” she mused, running her fingers through his dark hair with a sigh. “Your hair was so pretty and now it’s ruined.”

“You don’t like me like this, Princess?”

“Mmm. I always liked you however you happened to be,” she said, dividing his hair with a comb and pinning bits to the top of his head. Rowan didn’t respond, merely caught her gaze in the mirror for a split second before shifting his attention back to his phone. He’d already laid out clippers, so she started by cutting the length off. She took her time, making sure everything was even, using the clippers to shave off the back and the sides until she was satisfied. She kept some length on the top, that he had the kind of haircut that so many twenty-somethings did these days, that Arthur Shelby haircut that only looked good on the right people. As she stood before Rowan, running pomade through his freshly-dyed locks, she decided he would look good with anything. Aelin brushed the cut hair from his shoulders with a towel then leaned back slightly from where she stood between his legs. “There. Perfect.” She gave him a half smile then turned to start cleaning up the mess, only for his fingers to catch one of her hands, his fingers grazing the outside of her thigh. Rowan tugged on her hand until she was facing him. He laced their fingers in his one hand, the thumb of his other brushing over her chin.

“Aelin,” he said her name softly as he brought their laced fingers up to his neck, her own fingers untangling from his and sliding around the back of his head. The fingers of her other hand traced over the Cupid’s bow of his lips and in a moment of aching defeat, she rest her forehead against his, eyes closing as they merely breathed together, the sort of intimacy that only two people that knew and loved each other deeply could share.

Rowan tilted his head back, only just so his nose brushed against her cheek, his lips grazing the corner of her mouth. And then they were kissing, his hands running up her sides and touching her bare skin. He pulled back only slightly to look at her for a moment before he kissed her again, and again, and again. All soft kisses that had none of the bite that their dialogue usually entailed.

After what felt like forever, she pulled her mouth from his, though she so desperately wanted to keep going, wanted him to carry her out the door and lay her out on their bed and make her forget everything the last few years had carried, but she didn’t. Instead, she pressed another soft kiss to his mouth, hating herself for letting it linger for a second too long, then stepped back, glancing at the floor and his hair scattered everywhere.

“I’m gonna get a broom to clean this up,” she said, and then she was gone.


	6. novocaine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They took our love and filled it up  
Filled it up with Novocaine and now I’m just numb  
Now I’m just numb  
I don’t feel a thing for you   
Novocaine // Fall Out Boy

The sun was bright, it was the picturesque kind of spring day that had the whole Cadre out at a park mostly to gather fresh air. Coincidentally it was a park across from the gates of the Glass Castle of Adarlan, and it provided an easy enough cover for them to watch the guards that lurked about the gates. Aelin and Fenrys were lounging on a blanket under a tree while the rest of the men threw a football around. It was the first time Aelin had seen Rowan laugh, really laugh, since she’d been added to the Cadre. She missed it, his laugh. Missed being the one to make him laugh.

“What’re you thinking about?” Fenrys’s head dropped into her lap, pulling her from her thoughts. His hair was a bun of tangled black curls, not too unlike the messy bun her freshly red locks were pulled into. Aelin shook her head, a slight shrug of her shoulders as she patted his cheek. “You were looking at Whitethorn like he’s a piece of candy.”

“I was looking at Whitethorn like he’s an asshole.”

“I didn’t know you ate ass, Princess,” Fenrys drawled, and when Aelin gaped at him like a fish, his full lips spread into a wide grin. “You were looking at him like you wanted to devour him is all.” Aelin whacked him with her book, making him bark out a laugh.

“What’s so funny?” Rowan asked, dropping onto the blanket next to Aelin. He was a little sweaty and out of breath from running around as he leaned back on his elbows, crossing his legs at the ankle. Aelin eyed him for a moment, then decided to play the part of his wife, even pausing to rotate the diamond ring on her left hand before she leaned over and pressed a kiss to his lips. He seemed a little surprised, but brought one of his hands up to cup her face.

“Fen thinks he has jokes,” she said against his lips, kissing him one more time before she sat up. Fenrys’s head remained in her lap, gazing up at her with a quirked brow. “Oh sorry, did you want a kiss too?” And then she leaned down and kissed him on the mouth the same way she’d just kissed Rowan, who pinched her side so hard she bolted up and smacked his chest. “Ow! What the fuck?”

“You’re supposed to be married to me, you can’t just make out with all of us.”

“One, nobody was looking. Two, that was hardly making out, and three, I’m trying to get laid later,” she tried to joke, but she was scowling as she rubbed her side. That was going to bruise. It might even leave a knot behind. “Seriously, where did you learn to pinch like that?” Rowan ignored her though, pushing himself to his feet and jogging back over to Lorcan.

“You’re baiting him,” Fen said, tilting his head to look at her.

“Yeah, well,” she huffed, a strand of her hair blowing out of her face. Fenrys cocked a brow, clearly waiting for her to go on. “He kissed me earlier and I don’t know what it meant. I have no fucking clue what it meant and it’s driving me crazy.”

“Was it good?”

“It was better than good. That’s the thing. It was soft like…like in the early years of our relationship when he was just so fucking in love with me and nothing else mattered. When he talked about having kids with me, when he talked about marrying me. What changed? It was like everything was good and then he started to throw himself into work more than he ever had before and then being with me was like a chore. You know the night that I left him he didn’t say anything? Nothing. I told him I was leaving and he just sat there, but he has the balls to act like he’s the one that was scorned? I kept...Gods, I kept waiting for him to call me. To tell me to come home. You know he never once tried to call me? I didn’t talk to him until I got out of that humvee.” She leaned back on her hands then, shaking her head. “And then he kisses me like that. I don’t know, Fen.”

“You deserved better than what he was giving you, Ace. You still do.” Fenrys sat up, turning to face her.

“You know I haven’t been with anyone else? Still? Two fucking years, I haven’t slept with anyone else, I just can’t, but his reputation proceeds him,” she huffed out a laugh, bringing her palms up to rub her eyes where tears had began to form. When the guys started to walk back over she shook her head as though clearing her mind of the emotion and she stood and walked the other direction to give herself time to cool off.

~*~

Upon returning to the house, the men had made notes of all sorts over maps of the castle, notes of the guard rotations and weaknesses. Their mission was to observe any and all weaknesses to assess the potential for a threat on King Dorian Havillard II’s life. There were rumors of an assassination, there was just no way of knowing when. The most likely options were several of the parties to be held over the next few weeks, which the Cadre would attend and do their best to protect his life. Until the first party in two nights, they had decided to make it their mission to explore any and all weaknesses that the outside of the castle may possess. Tomorrow, they would even send Aelin in to flirt with guards to see if it got her anywhere, if it enabled the Cadre to slip inside unnoticed.

Now, as the night came to an end, Aelin was already upstairs, freshly bathed and finished a glass of wine. She read and watched Netflix while the boys finished up their work of the maps. Normally she would have insisted on staying to help, but it was boring work, and they were all so equally observant that she opted to look over their collective findings in the morning and correct anything they may have missed.

She had just turned off her light and sunk into the sheets when Rowan slipped inside, staying as quiet as he could while he washed up, eventually crawling into bed. Aelin was quiet as he did, listening to the rustling of sheets, the clicking of metal as he took off his watch and deposited it on the nightstand.

“Rowan?” She felt him freeze for a moment before he settled into the blankets.

“Did I wake you? I’m sorry. Go back to sleep, Fireheart.”

“You didn’t. I just laid down,” she said, her back still go him. Judging by the sound of his voice, Rowan’s back was to her, too. “Can I ask you something?”

“Yes.” He shifted, and she knew if she looked behind her that he would have his head turned toward her, eyes likely fixed on the ceiling fan.

“Did you…did you cheat on me?” She forced out, and immediately wished she hadn’t. Rowan shot up to a sitting position, and grabbed her shoulder, pulling until she was laying on her back. Aelin kept her eyes fixed on the wall until he gripped her chin and forced her to look at him.

“Never, Aelin. Gods above that was never even an option, a thought, any sort of consideration. Surely you know that.” He didn’t sound mad, if anything he sounded hurt that she had ever thought he could have done it, and his eyes searched her face for any sign that she did know he never would have done that to her. He found nothing, because his face fell and he pulled his hand from her shoulder, dropping back against the pillows. Aelin merely rolled back over, and let the rotating sound of the ceiling fan rock her to sleep.


	7. La La

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There’s nothing I can do  
I just gravitate towards you  
You’re pulling on me like the moon  
I just wanna get you sideways   
I’ll say anything I can to get me more than just a dance  
Tell me where to put my hands  
You know that you could be my favorite one night stand.   
La La // The Cab

In an effort to see how tempted the guards would be by a pretty woman, Aelin wore a short sundress with white sneakers as she walked up toward the gates of the glass castle. Several others milled about, and Aelin took photos of the castle to blend in with the other tourists. She noticed a girl taking a photo in front of it so she approached one of the guards, a handsome young man probably not much younger than herself, and cleared her throat as she tapped him on the shoulder.

“Excuse me,” she said, mimicking Rowan’s thick Wendlynite accent to a perfect T, “would you take my picture in front of the castle? It’s just so different from ours back in Wendlyn.”

“Sure,” he grinned at her, taking her phone from her and switching spots with her. Aelin leaned against the iron gate, her hands in the air, posing like a typical tourist would in such situations. She even altered her pose a few times, mostly just to see how long it would take before the guard would say he thought he had the photo. It took at least two minutes, but he finally smiled at her again and handed her phone back to her.

“Gods, thank you so much,” she cooed, flipping her red hair over her shoulder, her accent rolling everywhere it was supposed to. “Have you ever met the king?” And on and on she went, laughing too loudly at his jokes, asking him questions over and over until he gave her his phone number - irritating proof that the guards could be swayed and distracted by a pretty face.

It was then, as the young man was working to convince her that she should let him take her out, that Rowan walked up and slid his arm around her waist. His entire body was tense, rigid as an asp coiled to strike. This wasn’t supposed to happen, she thought, as she took in the slight labor of his breathing from running over from the van they were using for surveillance. Aelin shifted in his arms to look up at him, her brow furrowed.

“Finally found a place to park, sorry it took me so long, love,” he said, leaning down to press a kiss to her mouth. She pulled back and forced a grin onto her lips as she looked at the guard.

“Husband wouldn’t like that so much, I’m afraid. Thank you for your help,” she said with a pat on his shoulder then grabbed Rowan’s hand and linked their fingers as they walked down away from the gate. When they were far enough away, she pulled her hand away and shoved him, irritated that he had let jealousy get the better of him. If he thought that was worth being jealous over, well, she would give him something to be jealous of. Asshole.

~*~

“Come to bed with me,” Fen said to Aelin, leaning down to kiss her softly. The corners of her mouth twitched as she took his outstretched hand and let him pull her to her feet. Their fingers laced, and she bit her lip, letting him tug her down the hall. She didn’t her best to look smitten, like she couldn’t wait for what the next few hours were going to entail. She went the extra mile, smacking his ass as she took off running down the hall, only for Fen to chase after her. When he reached her, his arms wrapped around her waist and she squealed loudly, both of them bursting into joyous laughter before disappearing into his room at the end of the hall.

“He’s going to kick my ass,” Fenrys said flatly, running a hand down his face.

“You knew that when you agreed, don’t act like it’s new information.”

“You couldn’t see his face when I kissed you. I don’t want to die on this mission, least of all by the hand of Rowan Whitethorn,” he argued as they fell onto Fenrys’s bed. Aelin immediately grabbed the tv remote and began flipping through Netflix, looking for something for them to watch while they waited out their fake sex session.

“We’ve been screwing with him for years, and anyway, he has less claim to me now than he did then so it’s fine.”

“He’s going to break my hands for touching you.”

“You’re a sniper. He can’t do that, we need your hands for more important things than for fondling human bodies,” she countered, quirking a brow and rolling onto her side to face him. It was still weird to her, looking at him with black hair. He was Fen, but then entirely someone else at the same time. “Give me a hickey.”

“He’ll break every bone in my body except my left hand and right trigger finger and thumb if the guys would let him after what he think I’m doing to you. And then he’ll rip out my tongue for marking you-“ he stopped talking when Aelin shot him a venomous look that told him to shut up and just do it, so with a sigh he rolled on top of her and pressed several soft kisses to her neck before muttering, “you fucking owe me,” then began his work.

~*~

When she slipped back into the room she shared with Rowan well after three, yet he sat with his back straight up as she shut the door behind her. He didn’t move until she’d crawled into bed, and only then did he shift to look at her slightly.

“What are you still doing up?” She asked, laying on her side to face him. One of her hands was tucked under her head, the other laying on the pillow beside her head. Rowan laid down on his side looking at her, not at all hesitant when he reached out, thumb brushing the collar of the shirt she wore, Fenrys’s, down enough to fully reveal the dark purple bruise he had managed to work up on her skin.

“Did you fuck him or were you trying to get a rise out of me?” His thumb brushed over the mark again, featherlight and barely there, but enough that her skin erupted with goosebumps. She didn’t answer, choosing instead to chew on her bottom lip. “Answer me.” Rowan added pressure where his thumb lay, right on her pulse point. Aelin didn’t cave, her eyes shifting to meet his.

“Did he make you moan like I do, Aelin?” His voice was such a low, deep timbre that she could feel it in her chest. She felt the aftershocks of it in the way his fingers brushed up the side of her neck, down the line of her jaw. She refused to speak, refused to let him know that he had any of the effect on her that he knew he did.

“Did he fuck you how I know you like to be fucked?” Amusement, amusement in his tone, amusement twitching at the corners of his mouth. “Did he make you come the way that I do, love?” His accent, rolling and lilting, thick with desire. Her eyes fluttered shut, tilting her head slightly when he moved close enough to nudge his nose against hers. Aelin’s lips parted slightly when he dragged his nose the length of her throat as though he could scent her desire in her blood. She inhaled sharply when his mouth pressed against the mark that Fenrys had made, that he had carefully nipped and sucked at her skin until the color began to form. Rowan’s tongue traced the shape of it, his fingers tracing a line down the valley between her breasts. The soft pad of his thumb traced her lips and she parted them further, taking it between her teeth and sucking, tip of her tongue swirling over it. And then his lips were at her hear, kissing just below then his low voice was murmuring, “Did you let him come inside you like you let me?” The words pooling straight to her core. Before she realized what she was doing, before she could stop herself she was shaking her head and capturing his mouth with her own. Rowan rolled on top of her, consuming her entirely until her body caught fire and she burned and burned beneath him.


	8. my strange addiction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Put your lips on my skin and you might ignite it  
Hurts, but I know how to hide it, kinda like it  
Bad bad news   
One of is gonna lose  
I’m the powder, you’re the fuse  
Just add some friction  
My Strange Addiction // Billie Eilish

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is pure smut.

Rowan’s lips were burning holes in her skin everywhere they touched. Her entire body felt like she was on fire as he rolled on top of her, teeth closing over the skin of her neck and tugging until it slipped from their grip. He licked his tongue up the column of her throat, starting at the hollow and ending at her chin, his mouth moving back over hers as he pushed his tongue into her mouth. Aelin moaned, her hands tangled in his dark hair. Rowan’s hands moved all over her body, touchingfeelinggrabbing. All of his touches were hot, warm hands on feverish skin setting flame alight over her skin. Aelin’s hands gripped his shoulders; she somehow felt paralyzed under his body and found herself unable to move as he dragged his hands over her thighs and hips.

Rowan’s fingers dipped under the collar of her shirt, and then he was pulling back for a brief moment as he ripped it, her bare torso exposed for him to ravish. Ravish he did, licking and sucking, grabbing and tugging at her skin in ways she knew would bruise later, and molten lava pooled between her legs at the thought.

He had always been the only person to effect her this way, to have her completely soaked before they even really got started. The sounds that left her mouth were breathy and high pitched. It felt so good, almost too good as he roughly gripped her breasts, his tongue and teeth wrapping around her nipple. He tugged with his teeth, the puckering sound of skin popping from his mouth as he tugged until it fell from his lips. Aelin cursed, her legs brushing up against his sides.

As he moved to her other breast, his hand trailed up her calf and hooked under her knee. Rowan drove his hips against hers over and over, the friction not nearly enough for what she really wanted. There was too much clothing hanging around their hips, their sweaty bare torsos pressed together not nearly enough. It would never be enough.

It appeared to not be enough for him either because he moved off of her briefly to pull his sweatpants off, and Aelin took the opportunity to shrug out of the ripped shirt that hung from her arms and slipped her panties off her legs. When she lay back down, she let her legs fall open, and Rowan groaned at her glistening folds, his thumb immediately going to drag through and coat his finger with her juices. He dragged his teeth over his lip as he held it to her lips and Aelin greedily accepted it into her mouth, teeth closing over and tongue caressing the pad of his finger. Rowan pulled his thumb from her mouth and brushed it over her bottom lip, unable to stop him from kissing her again and forcing his tongue into her mouth. He couldn’t stop the moan that arose in his throat as he tasted her on her own tongue.

Aelin’s fingers dragged down his chest, her nails scraping in a way that had him shuddering from the contact as their tongues tangled and fought. Rowan’s teeth bit down on her lip and tugged, pulling a moan out of her as he did. He couldn’t help but grind his hips against hers, his cock sliding between her folds with the tip nudging her clit over and over as he thrust. She let out a gasping breath, her fingers digging into his shoulders as she tried to maneuver him into slipping inside her, but he pulled away, clicking his tongue at her. Aelin let out a frustrated groan, knowing all too well what this entire night was going to have in store for her. Especially when he dropped a few other small kisses to her mouth before rising up on his knees.

Aelin’s hand immediately went to his dick, her fingers becoming wet with her own juices that coated him entirely. She stroked him slowly, rotating her wrist to get the optimal effect. He crawled up the length of her body, straddling her chest until the tip of his cock was resting against her lips. Aelin’s eyes were heavy-lidded as she parted her lips, and Rowan shifted his hips forward to slip into her waiting mouth.

She couldn’t help herself - she let out a long and low moan against his length as he pushed until the tip knocked the back of the throat and she gagged. Further still he pushed, her eyes watering as he pushed into her throat. The moans she was eliciting vibrated against him and he let out a low groan, his hands clutching the headboard of the bed as he rocked into her mouth. He started out slow, letting her adjust as he slowly forced himself in and out of her mouth. Aelin’s own fingers snaked between her legs and toyed with her clit, teasing motions because she knew he would want to be the reason she came for the first time. She knew all too well what would happen if he wasn’t the reason she fractured and moaned her way through her first orgasm of the night.

It didn’t take long before he was rocking in and out of her mouth faster, wet sounds filling the air continually as he fucked her mouth with fervor. His moans only turned her on more, had her dragging her nails down his perfectly chiseled torso and leaving behind perfect red welts. Rowan’s hand closed over her wrist behind his back, pulling her hand away from her clit and bringing it to his mouth. He took her fingers then, licking them clean, his eyes fluttering closed as he tasted her for the first time in years - and goddamn him if she wasn’t the best thing he had ever tasted.

It was then that he decided he needed to drink her in from the source and he pulled from her mouth, a disappointed whimper falling from her lips that had him chuckling as he kissed her lips briefly.

“Always so eager,” he murmured, dragging his lips and teeth and tongue down the center of her body. He took his time to mark her, his tongue and teeth hard and sharp against her skin. It was a claiming and a warning all at the same time: only he would be allowed to mark her skin like this from now on. Only him, only his mouth, only his teeth biting bruises on her tanned flesh.

When he reached her drenched and aching center, he didn’t taste her at her opening the way she so desperately needed. No, he licked and nipped at her inner thigh, fully able to taste hints of what he wanted, needed to taste. He paused at the junction of her thigh and bit down, clamping his mouth over the tendon and sucking and sucking until a deep bruise began to form, and then he moved to the other side, licking and then sucking at the same spot so she would have matching marks between her legs. Marks that would remind her tomorrow of who she belonged to, of who made her feel this way.

Rowan groaned the second his tongue came in contact with her center, but it was nothing compared to the sound that Aelin made. It was low and damn near guttural as he tasted her, like she hadn’t felt anything like it in years. In truth - she hadn’t. The way that Rowan fucked her and the way that other people had fucked her hadn’t ever compared. So much so that she’d given up on sleeping with other men and had taken to using her toys to fuck her the way she really wanted. The way that Rowan did.

He started off relatively slow, as if he were savoring it, his tongue licking up and down between her lips. The low timbre of his own moaning vibrated against her skin, and she found that when he made those sounds of hunger that it sent a shot of lightning straight to her clit. Before too long, he had his teeth grazing the sensitive nub, which coaxed small gasps from Aelin as her fingers twisted into his hair. She lifted her hips, grinding against his mouth until he gave her the added friction she wanted and needed: his fingers slipping into her slit and pumping. Except he was pumping them almost painfully slow, so slow that she was moving her hips to try to make him go faster. Aelin stopped, however, when he stopped his movements and looked up at her with a brow raised and she let out a frustrated groan that sounded closer to a growl.

“You know how I want it,” she gritted out, tugging at the ends of his hair in frustration, her teeth running over her bottom lip. A slow, feral smile spread across his lips as he rubbing his thumb over her clit, his middle and ring finger still inside her. He twitched them, curving them upward and toward him, coaxing that spot inside her that had her letting out a gasping moan as he kissed up to her throat.

“Do I?” He asked against her neck, licking and sucking, then biting roughly when she wimpered.

“Please,” she breathed, fisting his dark hair in her fist. “Pleasepleaseplease.” She didn’t have time to even process anything when he started fingering her hard and rough, the evidence of how wet she was evidence in the sounds that came from between her legs. Aelin practically screamed, spreading her legs as wide as she could, moving her hips in fractured broken movements as she neared an orgasm.

And then he stopped. Completely stopped, pulling his fingers from inside her and forcing them into her mouth so hard that she nearly choked, but she sucked her wetness from them until they were clean. Aelin began moaning when Rowan pulled them out enough for him to lick and suck on them, too, their tongues briefly grazing against the others as they cleaned her fingers entirely.

“Tell me, love,” he whispered, his deep voice sending pulses straight between her legs as he lowered his lips to her ear. “Tell me what you want.”

“Fuck me,” it came out as another wimper. “Fuck me until I can’t think, fuck me until I can’t move, until I’m shaking, until I’m begging you to stop.”

The way he kissed her then was open mouthed and messy, their tongues moving together as he begin to slide his dick back and forth between her folds. His hand was at her throat, his thumb brushing against the hollow of it as he let his teeth graze her tongue.

“You are so godsdamn wet for me,” he groaned into her mouth, meeting no resistance at all as he pushed his cock into her. Aelin let out a loud moan, a sound of pure ecstasy that fueled him to squeeze her throat. The breath was taking from her as he choked her, a strangled sound coming from her as he began to fuck her. Rowan was completely ravaging her, his considerable size something that no other man had come close to comparing to. “Your pussy is so fucking tight. And it’s mine.”

“Yes, daddy, yesyesyes,” she choked out, eyes falling shut as he pounded into her so hard the entire bed shook and slammed into the wall.

“Tell me it’s mine.” Rowan squeezed her neck harder, her vision blurring and going black when she opened her eyes to look at his face.

“My pussy is yours,” she croaked out. “I’m yours.” He released her throat by pushing away from her and she couldn’t help but gasp for breath as he rose to a kneeling position, her hips lifted from the bed and draped over his thighs. He pulled her until he was nearly in to the hilt and began thrusting against, hard and fast and hitting that spot that had her legs shaking as she began to cum for the first time, as he allowed her to feel the pleasure that had her screaming.

From this angle, he was pushing up into her, and he could see his cock moving inside her with every thrust. Aelin moved her hand to touch her clit, only for Rowan to grip her wrists and squeeze so hard they both knew of the bruises that would mark her tomorrow.

“I can fucking see myself moving inside you,” he ground out, almost unable to handle seeing how he was physically claiming her with every single hard thrust into her body. Her legs were shaking as she, too, glanced down, letting out a moan at the sight.

He pulled out and she whimpered in response, desperate and breathy as he grabbed her hips and flipped her over onto her stomach and plunging straight back in. Rowan gripped her hair halfway down her length and wrapped it around his wrist so his hold on her was tight and he pulled, jerking her head back so her back had a perfect arch to it. His other hand gripped both of her hands and held them behind her back as he fucked her harder still, the sounds she made only driving him to keep fucking her until she was so sore she wouldn’t be able to walk tomorrow.

It took her begging him to keep going for him to stop, dropping the grip he had on her arms and yanking her back by her hair until her back was pressed flush against his abdomen. She cried out, a combination of pain and pleasure and frustration as he slipped out of her, but two of his fingers immediately dove into her, his palm rubbing against her clit as he finger fucked her until she was screaming again. It was then that he released her hair, biting down on the side of her neck as he choked her again, squeezing until she was gasping. Aelin’s legs were shaking, the hardest they had ever shook from an orgasm, her hands trembling as she reached behind her to claw at his sides.

“Pleasepleaseplease.”

“Please what, baby?” he said into her ear, biting down on her lobe as he squeezed her neck.

“Come,” she gasped. “Please I want you to come, I want you to come Ineedyoutocome.”

“Come where?” Rowan was breathless and his fingers, his sinful fucking fingers continued to pump in and out of her until she was pushing his hand away from her body. She was sensitive, too sensitive, she couldn’t take much more.

“Inside me.”

“Beg for me,” his thumb brushed over her bottom lip, his teeth tugging at it a moment later. “Beg for daddy, baby.”

“Please come in my pussy,” her voice was too high, almost whiny in tone as she begged how he wanted. “Pleasepleaseplease come inside me, daddy please, I need you to come inside me, I-” she was cut off by the loud moan that clawed itself out of her throat as he sheathed himself inside her, thrusting into her quickly and so hard she thought she would split in two. He kept fucking her that way, her legs shaking almost violently until he flipped her back over one more time. Aelin tightened her legs around his hips as he kissed her roughly, the kiss a collision of tongues and teeth. Rowan’s fingers were digging into her thighs, her own fingers scratching his back with sharp nails leaving angry welts across his tanned skin, even going so far as to draw blood as she did everything she could to get him closer, deeper.

“Fuck, I’m gonna come,” he groaned into her mouth, his hand gripping her jaw with bruising intensity. “Look at me when I come inside your pussy, baby.” She did, her legs squeezing at his sides as he pressed his forehead against hers, their eyes locked with his hand wrapped around her throat.

“Please, please Ro-” her nails scraped down his sides, hitting him in a way that had him calling out for her as he forced himself as deep as she could take him, the drive so hard and claiming that he pushed her body further up the bed. Aelin was crying, hot tears streaking down her face as he came inside her. His hips didn’t still until they were both too sensitive, and even then he couldn’t bring himself to pull out of her, his cum leaking out around his cock.

Their hard, sharp movements turned into softer ones, her scratches becoming light as she trailed her fingers up and down his sides. His hard kisses become softer, more loving and slow. Soon, he was peppering little kisses over her face, kissing away the tears that had fallen as a sign of her pleasure.

He pulled back to look at her, her eyes red and bloodshot, lips swollen and pink from kissing. Her chest was heaving against his, her throat was red from where he’d gripped her so hard she almost couldn’t breathe. He pressed soft kisses to the hollow of her throat, to the consetllation of marks and bruises that covered her body.

It was then, when she thought they were finished that he settled back between her legs, his face resting against one of her thighs as she lay herself completely open for her. He touched her softly, his finger dragging between her lips, slightly into her slit to coat it in his cum. Rowan didn’t look away from her as he brought that finger to her lips and she gladly took it into her mouth, soaking their combined juices from her finger at the same time that he began to lick at her again, unable to resist tasting the both of them after spending too long apart, licking and sucking at her too-sensitive nub that sent her into another earth shattering orgasm. Her entire body was shaking as she pushed his head away.

“No,nonono, I can’t.” She was sobbing, forcing her legs closed and tugging on his hair, wanting him back up beside her, wanting his tongue memorizing the taste of her mouth. He obliged then, licking his way back up her body until he was kissing her lazily. She was still crying, still shaking, still hyper-aware of everywhere their skin touched.

“You did so good for me,” he murmured against her cheek, the rough beginnings of the beard he was now growing scratching her smooth skin. “So, so good for me, baby.” She hummed in response, her eyes closed as she focused on breathing, focused on the languid movements of his fingers up and down her side.

When she finally opened her eyes, she rest her hand on the side of his cheek, her thumb brushing over his bottom lip. He kissed her then, soft kisses over and over, kisses that were slow and sweet. Rowan kissed her like that for a while, letting her come down from her high, letting her recover. Only when she had ceased to shake, when the tears had ceased to fall from her eyes did he begin to kiss and suck at her neck again.

“Are you ready?”

“For what, baby?” she asked, running her fingers through his hair.

“Round two.”


	9. throw me in the water

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Throw me in the water   
I was never really good for you  
Throw me in the water // WILD

Aelin woke up with her face nuzzled against Rowan’s bare chest. His arm was draped over her side, his hand resting against her upper back. When she shifted slightly, Rowan began to stir, his fingers lightly running up and down her spine.

“No,” he said, voice gravelly and thick with sleep. Aelin pressed a soft kiss to his chest, then his neck, the underside of his chin before he finally cracked an eye open, peeking at her through a thick layer of lashes. Rowan brushed her hair from her face, running his fingers through the golden hair he had pulled so tightly last night while she weighed against him. At the memory, he pressed a kiss to her lips, one that was slow and lingering. “I missed waking up with you like this. Do you know how hard it’s been to sleep next to you and not tug you against me?”

Aelin couldn’t help the small grin that tugged at her lips. She traced her fingers over the tattoo that took up the majority of the left side of his chest and rib cage, quietly saying, “I missed it, too.”

It felt like bliss. Every day that she had woken up tangled with him, with his arms around her and his chin resting on the top of her head had been the best days. Days where she had felt invincible and so in love and loved in return.

And then Rowan got distant, put work before her time and time again. Always choosing another deployment away from her like it was the easiest thing in the world. Even when she begged him to stay he never would. And then she miscarried and had to endure it alone, had to endure losing their daughter by herself. Sure, she’d had her friends, but she never got to grieve with Rowan the way her body ached to.

As the memories tugged at her heart, tears sprang in her eyes and she sat up and rubbed her eyes with the heels of her hands.

“Baby-“

“Don’t, Rowan. It was…it was just sex,” she said soft, slipping out of bed and disappearing into the bathroom where she sat in the bath, forehead on her knees as the hot water poured over her, burning her skin and the memories from her mind as she sobbed.

When she finally went down for breakfast, everyone was scattered around the table. Rowan had been dressing when she left the room, neither of them saying a word as he followed her down the hall. Rowan took his next to Lorcan, and Aelin sat next to Fenrys.

“Are we on better terms this morning?” Fenrys drawled, leaning back and resting his arm on the back of Aelin’s chair. Dropping waffles - courtesy of Connall - onto her plate, Aelin looked at Rowan and shook her head, muttering a hard, “No.” Across the table, Rowan sighed.

“What would make you think that?” She asked, her eyes shifting to each of the men at the table. Vaughan, at the head of the table snorted.

“I don’t know, what do you think, daddy?” He asked, his eyes locked on Rowan. Heat bloomed from Aelin’s chest to her cheeks. Rowan, however, just took a bite of his food. Connall, the ever quiet and sweeter of the twins looked at Aelin with a shrug of his shoulders, betraying her entirely as he said - through a mouth full of food - “you were really loud.”

“Et tu, Bruté?” Aelin quipped, throwing a grape at the dark haired twin. It hit his chest and bounced onto his plate. Connall just smiled down at the folder that was open in front of him, picking the grape up and popping it into his mouth.

“Just fucking keep it down next time, alright? None of us want to listen to you beg-“

“There won’t be a next time,” Aelin said flatly, cutting Lorcan off completely. She avoided Rowan’s gaze when his head snapped up to look at her. “It’s out of my system.”

Rowan shoved up from his chair and left the manor entirely, the back door slamming shut behind him.

“Great,” Lorcan drawled, flipping through the photos they’d captured during surveillance. “Now we have to deal with that again.”

“Deal with what again?” Aelin snapped, her words laced with accusation. It wasn’t Lorcan that answered, though. It was her best friend at the table, who shifted to look at her and said: “Losing you.”


	10. autopilot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> When I’m with you, auto, auto  
Autopilot my way through.   
Autopilot // Sofia Karlberg

For two weeks, there was a tension lingering in the air so thick that it felt hard to breathe with both Rowan and Aelin in the same room. Every muscle on Rowan’s body seemed to be pulled so taught that they might snap. Every look that he gave was icy, the lines of his face hard and his jaw always clenched.

Aelin was just as bad, ignoring just about anything Rowan said at any of their morning and evening rundowns. If he asked her a question, she ignored it, instead turning her gaze to Fenrys and responding by making deliberate eye contact with him. When they had to go undercover in the city, it seemed to take optimal effort from both parties to relax enough to not look like they’d slit each other’s throat given the opportunity.

Aelin tended to wait until Rowan was asleep before she climbed into bed, and slipped out before he woke. In fact, if it wasn’t necessary for them to share the same air, she found a way to make herself useful elsewhere. The one night they had to attend a gala with the royal family, posing as Lord William and Lady Tessa, she had to come home and soak in a hot bath for hours because her muscles were so tight. Faking affection with him, whether it be his hand on her back or her having to lean into his chest was harder than it looked.

Everyone hated it, but no one dared say anything. Even Lorcan kept his comments to himself, afraid of what would happen if he so much as disturbed the raging ocean that seemed to separate the two soldiers. It was all anyone could do to just keep a storm from shattering the atmosphere of their temporary home.

The morning of the worst day of the year for Aelin, which just so happened to be a Monday at that, she’d woken from a nightmare where she awoke alone, covered in her own blood. It wasn’t really a nightmare so much as a memory of the day that she did wake up, her thighs sticky and dark in the dim lighting of her bedroom. She immediately knew that something was wrong, something was very wrong. Call it a mother’s intuition, but she knew her baby was gone from the moment her eyes had snapped open.

She sat with her legs dangling over the bed, her eyes closed as she steadied herself with deep breaths. Aelin had no control over the emotional thunderstorm that shook her entire body, her tears splashing puddles on her thighs. It was the worst day of the year. A day that was burned into her memory, a day that she was unable to stop thinking about every other day of the year. The day’s emotions just struck her harder on the anniversary of the loss of her child. Their child.

“Aelin?” Rowan stirred in the bed behind her, the evidence of his shifting on the mattress to lean toward where she sat, easy to distinguish.

She shot him a sharp glare over her shoulder, her cheeks flushed and splotchy, her eyes swollen and red-rimmed.

“What’s wrong?” He reached out for her but the second his fingers grazed her back she flinched away, sliding off the bed entirely disappearing into the bathroom with a slam of the door.

She stared at herself in the mirror, her fingers tracing over the black silk of her nightgown, over the flat planes of her toned abdomen that had once been swollen with the growth of her babe. Aelin tucked her bottom lip between her teeth and climbed into the empty bathtub. With her long legs crisscrossed before her, she sunk low into it, her head resting on the back. And then she let her eyes glaze over, let her vision go out of focus, and she did nothing but exist.

~*~

“I don’t know what to do,” Rowan said, his forehead pressed to the wood of the breakfast table.

It had been two hours and nobody had heard a single thing; not a sneeze, not a sob, quite literally nothing since Aelin slammed the door behind her. Even when he knocked, he heard nothing. The door was locked, and while part of him knew she just needed space, the other part was worried that she had done something dumb whilst upset. He also knew that if she was fine in there and he busted down the door, that she would completely throttle him. Aelin was a warrior, her punches and roundhouse kicks were no joke. He would know - he’d taken one to the head and despite the padded headgear he’d been wearing at the time, he still received a concussion.

“Did you try knocking?” was Connall’s dry response from the other end of the table.

Like Fenrys, he truly liked Aelin. They weren’t as close as the blonde and his twin brother, but he enjoyed their friendship and whatever time they had spent together. He could see her as a little sister as much as Fenrys did. But Rowan was also his brother in arms, so it was hard to see the both of them suffering, despite whatever the issue was likely being Rowan’s fault. It usually was.

Rowan cut him a sharp look, followed by an equally sharp, “Obviously.” He sighed. “She won’t let me in.”

“I’ll go,” Fenrys said from the kitchen, placing his dirty plate in the sink. “She likes me more than you, anyway.”

When he reached the room, it was eerily quiet. He snuck up to the door, pressing his ear to it only to hear no sound at all. It was dead quiet inside. There was no sign of water sloshing, not even sound of her crying. He knocked, rapping his knuckles against the wood of the door.

“Aelin? It’s just me, babe,” he said, keeping his voice soft and level. More silence followed, and he was just about to walk away when he heard rustling followed by the door being pulled open. He slipped inside, shutting it behind him.

“Lock it,” was all she said, so he did, then he turned to look at her.

She was sitting in the bathtub, her thighs pressed to her chest and her chin resting on her knees. Aelin’s arms were wrapped around her legs, thumbs rubbing small circles over the bare skin of her calves. Fenrys debated where to sit, finally deciding to sit on the floor beside the bath, his back pressed to the wall and his legs stretched out in front of him. Fen’s toes nearly touched the wall, which made it the better place for him to sit considering how cramped it would have been with the two of them in the bath.

Fenrys lifted his arm, resting it on the lip of the bath. He rubbed her upper arm with his knuckle, watching her breathe until she finally looked at him. She looked completely wrecked. Not on the outside, no. On the outside she was beautiful as ever, despite the tear stained cheeks and puffy eyes. The color of her irises popped against how bloodshot they were, the unusual colors bursting with life, with pain.

But Fenrys could see through all of that. He could see the desperation and fear in her eyes, he could see the grief that marked her face despite it being seemingly blank. Fenrys knew Aelin, in some ways better than Rowan did lately, because they’d spent many nights drunk, laying on the top of a humvee before Fen had gone to special forces and was taken out of her squadron.

“It’s the anniversary today,” she said, finally shifting her eyes to look at him.

Fenrys arched his brows. The anniversary of their breakup wasn’t for five more days. He knew, because it was the worst day of the year for Rowan. Every year on that day, he made Fenrys train with him until they were both so exhausted they couldn’t move. The days after D-Day, as the cadre referred to it, was full of ice baths and icy hot on sore muscles. Rowan didn’t pull punches. Ever.

“I thought you broke up with him-”

“The baby. I… did he not tell you?”

Fenrys could feel his face go white as a sheet as the blood left his face. His stomach dropped the way it did on a rollercoaster. Rowan and Aelin didn’t have a child that needed to be tended to, to be loved on. There was no physical baby, no little girl running around with Rowan’s stubbornness and Aelin’s wildfire. Which would only mean one thing.

“I had a miscarriage, Fenrys.” She sounded empty when she spoke the words, her finger tapped the porcelain of the tub. A whoosh of air left his lungs that he didn’t know he was holding.

“Aelin, I am so fucking sorry. I had no idea. No clue,” he said, reaching to loop one of his fingers through hers. He was frowning, clearly upset that Rowan hadn’t confided in him. He was wondering if Rowan had confided with anyone.

“I woke up at 4:32 am on April 26. I was seventeen weeks pregnant. Only Aedion and Lysandra knew. I didn’t want anyone else to know before Rowan, and I wanted to surprise him when he got home. It wasn’t a conversation for over the phone. Especially with how…he had been. It felt like he was pulling away from me, Fen. I’m not even sure that a baby would have even been a happy accident or a detrimental one. I just know that I had never been so happy in my life as when I found out.” Aelin rest her forehead on her knees, shielding her face from view, but Fenrys didn’t miss the tears that slipped from her cheeks like droplets of rain.

“I woke up that morning and everything just felt… wrong. It was like I knew in the back of my mind but I couldn’t really place it. And then I realized how sticky my thighs felt when I tried to roll over and then something was wet, so I threw off the blanket and saw the blood. There was so much blood,” her voice broke and cracked like thunder, a sound so raw, full of heartbreak. “I went to the hospital and they confirmed. They had to do a D&E. And I was alone. I went through the whole thing alone. And if he had just… he had just stayed when I asked him to I… that was the final straw for me. He’s…” she sat back and looked at her friend, playing with his fingers as she thought.

“Did he stop loving me? He said he didn’t cheat on me but he just… the last two years of our relationship was me wanting to get married and be in love. I didn’t want to start a family yet or anything. He could have kept going on deployments. Shorter ones would have been nice. I just missed him all the time and he just… he didn’t care. Am I not good enough? You’ve been with him the entire time we’ve been together. Did he ever say anything? Did he… I don’t know. I don’t know. I just love him… loved. I loved him so much. So much that it’s a physical ache in my chest. What did I do wrong?”

“He never said much about your relationship but that week he came home when you left? The entire week leading up to coming home he talked about how he excited he was to see his girl. I don’t know, Aes. I wish I did. I do know, though, that you didn’t do anything wrong. Whatever his issues were, those are on him. Not you. Gods, I’m sorry. I’m sorry I can’t give you more answers.”

Aelin nodded, wiping her face with the back of her hand. Her palms dug into her eyes, an explosion of stars cascading across her vision. With a shake of her head she pushed herself to a standing position, Fenrys soon to follow.

“I think I just need a nap.” She nodded, more to herself than anything and left the bathroom, leaving the door open for Fenrys.

He felt an aching sadness in his soul for her. For the girl with fire in her eyes and soul, that loved Rowan so fiercely sometimes she thought she would die from it. His best friend that had been with him through most major life events. The thought of her alone in the hospital, experiencing the pain no woman should ever feel.

And then, as he rose to his feet, his thoughts shifted to Rowan. How he made her feel like she wasn’t enough, when she had always been more than enough. How she had likely begged him to stay home with her because she missed him deep in her soul but he kept refusing her the only thing she ever asked for.

Fenrys slipped from the bathroom, noting Aelin’s form curled up in bed, a soft pink blanket tucked under her cheek. He left the room and shut the door behind him, making his way back to the kitchen.

“Well?” Rowan asked, lowering his coffee from his lips.

“Fucking fix it. I don’t care what you do or how you do it but fucking fix it. It’s the anniversary of the miscarriage, asshole.”

Rowan’s coffee slipped from his hands entirely, hot coffee splashing all over his body but he didn’t move even as the cup shattered as his feet. He didn’t move as Lorcan swore after grazing the tip of his finger whilst chopping vegetables at the drop of that bomb. Connall and Vaughan both dropped the files in their hands. Everyone was in complete and total shock. Rowan’s eyes fluttered closed, face falling into his hands, then his hands ran through his hair roughly.

“Fuck. Fuck,” he said, pushing up from the chair so hard that it toppled over behind him. He was about to move past Fenrys when Fen shoved him hard, his hands to his chest like a battering ram.

“Stop fucking around with her. Stop fucking hurting her. Fucking hell, Whitethorn. Get your shit together. If you’re going to love her then fucking love her but don’t drag her through hell just because you want to get fucking laid.”

“You think that’s all she is to me? A good lay?” Rowan shoved Fenrys back, which lead Fen to stumble a few steps.

“Until you start treating her like something better, yeah, you fucking bastard, I do.” And then, unable to control the anger he felt toward his brother, toward one of his best friends for hurting his other best friend, Fenrys tackled him onto the coffee table. Wood splintered with a thundering crack as Rowan’s massive body slammed into it. Fenrys was sitting on his chest, Rowan’s arms pinned to his sides by Fen’s knees as he began to deliver punch after punch to Rowan’s face. His knuckles split from the hits, not pulling a single punch. Through all of it, through his face split and bleeding, through the taste of his blood that welled in his mouth, he didn’t struggle. He just let each hit happen, because he deserved it. Rowan deserved every single punch to his face. He only wished Fenrys would stand, attack other parts of his body, would kick and punch until his ribs were bruised and bleeding, too. But he didn’t. He just kept going for his face until Aelin padded into the room, her voice thick with frustration.

“What the fuck are you doing.”


	11. stockholm syndrome

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Losing track of time, lose our minds  
Got me homeward bound  
My hands, can’t get out, I’m tied  
Hostage of your eyes  
Oh I’m so tired, but i take your side  
You know love is blind, oh help me I  
I’m affected by Stockholm Syndrome.  
Stockholm Syndrome // Sofia Karlberg

Rowan sat before Aelin on a wooden stool in the bathroom, dried blood caked to his face. She had a damp rag and was wiping the now dark red substance from his cheeks. Rowan had insisted that he could do it himself, but she’d snapped at him, telling him to get his stupid ass to the bathroom so she could fix his face. He obliged, following her back to the bathroom and sitting down. She was currently between his legs, tending to his bruised and battered face.

“What did you do,” she said flatly, using a q-tip to clean an open wound with hydrogen peroxide. It wasn’t a question, it was a hard statement. She believed whatever he’d done he’d deserved it. And he did. He deserved every single hit that Fenrys had managed to get in before Aelin’s voice had rang through the room. It was the reason he didn’t bother trying to fight back, the reason he felt like he couldn’t breathe every time Aelin was too close to him.

Fuck, she was too close. And the way she was touching him, like he’d never done anything wrong, like she still cared. It was suffocating. He felt like he couldn’t breathe, but his skin was on fire everywhere she touched. Everything about her was intoxicating, it always had been. From the first time he’d spotted her at the dive bar Terrasen’s military men and women tended to frequent, she’d been the only person he wanted to get drunk off of. It still rang true. It didn’t matter how many women he’d tried to bury himself beneath, they never touched her the way she did, it never felt the same.

It hadn’t felt the same that night either.

_“Oh come on, Whitethorn, perk up,” Fenrys clapped a hand to his shoulder as Rowan took yet again another shot. Rowan was the most depressing man of the Cadre today, having missed his window of opportunity to call Aelin from the satellite phone. He wouldn’t be able to call again until next week. Until then, it would be only emails to get them both through the pain of missing each other. “We’re going down the block, you in?” Rowan merely shook his head, gesturing to the bartender for another shot. Fenrys shrugged and walked off, the rest of their crew follow suit. _

_Rowan continued to drown his sorrows through drink after drink, shot after shot, until he was completely unable to see straight. His mind seemed to be spinning constantly, worse even when he closed his eyes. He’d just stood to stumble back to the base when he saw her across the bar. Her golden hair tumbling well beyond her shoulders. Rowan couldn’t stop himself as he stumbled across the bar, spinning her in his arms and pressing his lips to hers without a second thought. The girl hesitated at first, but when they pulled back, her blue eyes shining in the dim light, and saw his face, she melted into his embrace. Her friends were buzzing around them, the music so loud he could hardly hear her as she asked him to leave with her. So he did. _

_They stumbled into her apartment, their kisses all hot, open mouthed kisses that was more sloppy tongue action than anything else. Something felt wrong, in the way that her hands touched him, wrong in the way they twined into his hair. But he couldn’t quite place why, so he tossed her onto the bed, working his own clothes off as she shimmied out of hers. He wasted no time in foreplay because he just wanted to be buried inside her, wanted that primal need of having her come undone around him to be fulfilled. It wasn’t until she said, “Please,” that he came to a complete and utter halt. _

_Her voice hit him like someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over his head, sent a chill down his spine the way that nails on a chalkboard did. The accent was all wrong. The tone of her voice was wrong - much too nasally to be Aelin. Now that his eyes were more focused in the dim light of her room, the shade of her hair wasn’t right either, her eyes were a plain and boring blue, nothing like the electric turquoise ringed with fiery hoops of gold. That was why it had felt so horribly ordinary. Was why he hadn’t felt completely on fire everywhere her hands touched. She wasn’t Aelin. Aelin was at home in Orynth. He was thousands of miles away in Wendlyn. _

_Rowan felt so sick, so horribly physically sick as he shoved himself off of her, tripping over himself to pull his clothes back on. He fled from her room, throwing up as soon as he was outside, heaving and heaving until his stomach was empty. Oh gods, oh gods, oh gods, what had he done. _

“Did I hurt you?” She asked, her voice pulling him from his reverie. _No._ He wanted to say. _Never_. Her fingers were brushing at a tear that had slipped down his cheek. He shook his head, but Aelin was frowning, her lips turned down, her brow furrowed as she brushed another tear from the other side of his face. He hadn’t even realized he was crying, and once he looked up at her and saw the concern in her eyes, he couldn’t stop the rest of them from pouring down his face as well. “Hey, hey, hey. Shh. It’s okay,” she soothed, her fingers gliding through his hair.

“I-“ he tried, and failed, a sob swallowing anything else he could have said as he dropped his head to rest against her chest. Rowan’s arms wrapped around her thin frame, pulling her closer to him as he cried, the absolute loathing and hatred he felt toward himself nearly unbearable. It was crushing him, the weight of it all, of knowing he had cheated, of knowing he’d lied to her about, of knowing if he had just been home with her maybe the miscarriage wouldn’t have happened at all, or if it had he would have been there to help her through it.

He hated how she was holding him now, how he clung to her like a leech, sucking the life out of her like a godsdamn parasite. He hated the way she was tending to his wounds, hated how much he missed her when he physically had her in his arms. He hated how perfect and right it had felt to be buried inside of her the other night, worse how much it hurt him when she said it was out of her system. He hated how beautiful she was, and how much his heart ached and yearned for her.

But most of all he hated himself. He hated himself for cheating, for being so drunk and stupid in his missing her that he let it get away from him. He hated that he’d spent two years making her feel like everything was her fault when it was only him. He hated that he hadn’t been home when she’d miscarried. Hated that he’d been planning to propose when he’d gotten home from that deployment, but couldn’t stomach it anymore. He hated that he made her feel like he didn’t want to marry her anymore, when it was all he wanted. He hated even worse that he carried her damn photo in his wallet still, that his phone’s photo albums were nothing but pictures of him and her from their five perfect years before he fucked it all up. He hated that he had her engagement ring tucked into his bag. Hated that no matter how many women he tried to fuck, it was never the same, it never felt the way it had with her.

He hated himself with every fiber of his being. He could hardly handle to look at himself in the mirror. And if she knew, she would hate him, too. Maybe that was why he hated himself most of all. Because he was so selfish that, despite knowing how well he truly deserved it, he couldn’t bring himself to tell her because he loved her so much he couldn’t imagine losing her so completely. Especially not now, not whenever she was laughing at him sometimes again, not when he got to see her smile on a daily basis again.

So instead of telling her everything, he kept his face buried against her chest, holding her tightly to him. She held steady, her arms around his shoulders, fingers combing through his hair as she held him while he sobbed well into the afternoon.


	12. bitter

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You push me away bitterly  
My apologies fall on your deaf ears  
You curse my name bitterly  
And now your eyes they look at me bitterly  
Bitter // Meshell Ndegeocello

When she woke up, she didn’t feel Rowan pressed against her like he had been when she’d fallen asleep. It had taken some coaxing, but she’d finally managed to get him to go to bed with her, to lay with her. He had been distant all evening. All throughout dinner he’d barely eaten, poking around at the food on his plate. Now, in the early hours of morning, she found him sitting on the edge of the bed, legs dangling over the side much like she had been yesterday.

She moved toward him and he turned to look at her. His eyes had bags beneath them accompanied by dark circles that indicated he’d yet to sleep. Aelin frowned, crawling over to him and sitting with one of her legs draped over his. One of her hands ran down his bare back, the other going to his face. His beautiful but heavily bruised and swollen face.

Aelin had hardly touched him before he was pushing her leg from his lap and standing, slipping out of her grip until he was pacing in front of her. It had felt like he’d not been able to get away from her fast enough. If she didn’t know better, she’d say he was even flinching away from her touch. With her brow furrowed, she looked up at him with confusion as she said, “Did I do something?”

Rowan huffed out a laugh and shook his head, coming to a stop in front of her. He looked like shit. Not only did he have heavy bruising blooming over his cheek and jaw, as well as over various parts of his abdomen, but his lip was split, he had a cut on his forehead, and aside from all injury he just looked exhausted.

“No. Gods above, no. You… you are perfect, Aelin,” he said softly.

“Then what? What’s wrong?” She stood before him, reaching out to grab him again but he stepped back and ran his fingers through his hair. He was definitely flinching away from her. Aelin’s jaw clenched and her arms folded across her chest. Worry flooded her features as Rowan’s eyes fluttered shut, his chest heaving with the deep breath he took.

“On my last deployment. The one where I came home and everything was different after,” he paused, as though she would need time to rack her memory to try to recall what he meant. She knew exactly what he meant. It was when their relationship had gone from perfect to distant and wrong. “It was the night I missed our phone date. I was… so drunk. Gods above, it was the most drunk I’ve ever been and ever will be.” Rowan paused again to look at her, shifting his own weight on his feet. Her eyes were already watering, her head starting to shake slightly as though she knew where this conversation was heading.

“Say it. Tell me what you did with her. I want to know everything.” Her jaw was set but her chin managed to wobble as she stared up at him, the gold of her eyes pure fire.

“It was just a lot of…a lot of kissing. Making out. We went back to her place and…Gods, Aelin,” he paused, the devastation on his face clear but the expression on hers was so stern that he continued. Rowan couldn’t get himself to meet her eyes, kept averting his to stare at the floor or down at his hands. “We were about to fuck, I was about to push into her, and she touched my face and said something to me and it wasn’t you. I just…she wasn’t you. And I’d tried to convince myself that it was you because I missed you and I wanted it to be you and she looked enough like you that for a second when I was drunk I just…I let myself get lost because it would mean being with you even if it wasn’t you.” By the time he was done speaking, her eyes were closed and tears were in a constant flow down her flushed cheeks.

“That was why everything changed. You cheated on me, and when I asked you about it a few weeks ago, you lied to me,” her tone was flat and empty, yet as shaky and unsteady as her hands that were now balled into fists.

“Aelin-”

That was when she shoved him so weakly that he didn’t even waver. She couldn’t stop herself as she shoved him again, then pounded her fists against his chest but every blow lacked her true physical strength. It didn’t hurt him, felt like nothing more than a child hitting at him, but she couldn’t stop as tears flooded her face and blinded her vision. Soon, she was shaking with gasping sobs as the weight of it slammed into her like a freight train. It was all she could do to stay on her feet, to not collapse to her knees. Rowan had ruined everything. Absolutely everything. He had destroyed their life together over shitty whiskey and a bottle blonde with a stupid accent.

“Fuck you,” she spat, but it lacked the venom she wanted it to have. Instead it came out between two sobs, her chest heaving as she shoved at him again. It was then that he reached for her, tried to wrap his arms around her that she shoved him hard enough that he stepped back. “Do not fucking touch me. Don’t fucking touch me.” She turned to walk away before stopping at the door, still shaking with grief and anger. “How could you? How… I hope it was worth it.”

No. No, it wasn’t.

~*~

“What the fuck, man?” Rowan spat a mouthful of blood onto the dirt of their training ring out in the backyard after Connall made another cheap shot to jaw that resulted in his teeth biting down on his already busted lip.

Connall just shrugged and exited the circle, stepping over the white outline that defined the ring. It wasn’t just Connall - it had been Fenrys and Vaughan before him that had all but cheated in their fights, choosing to go for punches and kicks when Rowan clearly wasn’t ready, when he’d been asking for a break or not yet recovered from the last hit. The guys had been so aggressive that Rowan himself had hardly managed to get any hits in, and that never happened. Seldom was it that Rowan wasn’t the one walking out of the ring the winner. Typically the only person that beat Rowan was Lorcan, but Rowan was off his game today and everyone seemed to be a little too on theirs.

When Lorcan stepped into the circle, Rowan wanted to retreat immediately because the expression he wore told him that there was no fucking around today. Rowan would not be the winner of this fight, he knew. It became an even more stark realization when Lorcan started swinging, every single blow hard and nearly inhuman in speed. Much like his training with the others before him, he barely got any hits in. It was all Rowan could do to deflect it all, and Lorcan didn’t even look phased.

“What the fuck is up with you guys today,” Rowan hissed after a particularly bruising uppercut to his jaw and kick to his ribs that had him completely winded. Lorcan paused for a moment, his already dark eyes flashing darker still, nearly black as he stared back at his comrade. He huffed a laugh and swung at him again.

“Maybe,” he said, a double hit to Rowan’s ribs as he blocked a hit, “you shouldn’t,” a flat handed hit to his temple meant to disorient him, “cheat on the girl,” Lorcan huffed, taking a single hit to his abdomen that he barely felt, “that would do fucking anything for you, you fucking prick.” So fast that Rowan didn’t have time to react, Lorcan managed to trip Rowan up and deliver a kick to his chest so hard that he was knocked completely off his feet and knocked onto his ass in a swift movement. “Fuck you, Whitethorn.” And then Lorcan, too, was stepping out of the ring and heading inside with everyone else.

Rowan lay on his back, staring up at the cloudy sky as he tried to catch his breath. So they knew, likely having been told by Aelin. To be fair, he deserved it all. There wasn’t a single hit that he received that he didn’t deserve. Lorcan didn’t even like Aelin, he had more-so been tolerating her for the last decade, but even he was kicking Rowan’s ass in her defense.

The back door to the house opened and closed, but Rowan was still having such a hard time breathing from Lorcan’s brutal kick to his breastbone. The point of impact was actually aching in a way that had him wondering if there was some sort of hairline fracture. He’d just taken another breath when Aelin came into his line of sight, her reddish brown hair blowing in the wind. Her eyes were fixed on the tree line several hundred yards back as she tied it up into a ponytail.

“Get up. I need to train,” she said to him, words empty and void of any warmth, any emotion.

He was on his feet immediately, her even coming out having surprised him. He hadn’t seen her at all yesterday afternoon, hadn’t seen her all morning. But now she stood before him a lethally angry expression molded onto her features that Rowan couldn’t imagine going away anytime soon.

“Aelin-” She pushed passed him and stopped at the table, fingers drumming against wood as her eyes ran over the various weapons that were laid out. Despite guns being the primary go-to for the military, each member of the cadre had other weapons of choice for hand to hand combat. It came in handy to know how to successfully win in a fight if you only had two steak knives from a dinner table to fight with.

Aelin picked up a pair of daggers, tossing another pair at Rowan’s feet. She could have sworn she saw him go a bit pale, but he picked them up anyway. She took her stance in front of him, rotating the blades in her hands once as she cracked her neck and rolled her shoulders. He opened his mouth to speak again, but she didn’t give him a chance before she was swinging her arm up toward his face. He’d hardly had time to block it before her other hand was coming up, so fast and hard that there was no way she’d planned to pull back. Rowan was fairly sure that if he hadn’t blocked it, she would have stabbed him. And maybe she would have. He certainly deserved it.

Aelin took a few steps back, bouncing on her toes before she was launching herself at him again, her arms a blur of tan skin and sharp metal. Rowan deflected her blades with his own, the sound of clashing metal filling the air. It went on and on, until they were both sweating. Rowan was massive, sure, but Aelin was smaller. Her movements were more lithe and lethal - she’d always been faster than him. She had beat him in fighting matches on more than one occasion, regardless as to if she had blades in her hands or was swinging with just her fists.

Her movements only got faster, her breathing heavier as she continued to fight with him. The blades in her hands sliced through the air, so quickly that Rowan hardly had time to deflect half the movements, more than once he was smacked with the flat edge of a blade as she somehow found it in herself to not cut his skin with the sharp edge.

Her blades clattered to the ground as she spun, throwing her leg out to kick him sharply in the ribs so hard he felt the air whoosh out of his lungs. As he stood there, doubled over with his hand to his side, he noticed as he looked over at her, that she was crying.

“Aelin…”

“Stand up,” she grit out, nostrils flaring.

Rowan’s eyes closed for a moment as he straightened, only for Aelin to come at him even harder, the wildfire roaring in her veins as she hit harder, faster. Until her hits started to become weaker and weaker, each blow less taxing on Rowan that the last until he finally gripped both of her hands in his. She was sobbing. Not a gentle sort of cry, but the kind of sobbing that brought forth earth shattering sobs. Her entire body shook with each gasping breath she took and she fought against the grip that Rowan had on her hands.

“Let _go_ of me, stop _touching_ me,” she cried, jerking away from him so hard that she collapsed onto her knees at his feet. Her arms were braced against the dirt, nails digging in so hard as she tried to ground herself that her nails split. In the back of her mind, she managed to register the door to the manor opening, managed to count thirty footsteps until there were a pair of black boots at her side. A roaring took over in her ears as she cried, as two arms lifted her wordlessly from the ground and cradled her to his chest.

Aelin expected to feel Fenrys’s curls as she wrapped her arms around his neck, but instead found that she was held against Lorcan, of all people. Lorcan, the one who barely tolerated her most days, carrying her inside as though he felt a need to protect her. It being Lorcan that came for her only made her cry harder, grip his shirt in her fists tighter as she pressed her face into his neck. To her surprise, he began to whisper quiet nothings to her to soothe her as he carried her inside, the slam of the door being the last thing she really remembered before she drifted off to sleep.


	13. Mother tongue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I’ll never forget when the floodgates opened  
We, we cried an ocean  
It still has me choking; it’s hard to explain  
I know you know me, you don’t have to show me.   
Mother tongue // bring me the horizon

Over the course of the last few days, they’d been working with the Captain of the Guard, Chaol Westfall, and a handful of his best guards to discuss security for the gala that would take place tomorrow. The Cadre agreed across the board that it was the best time for there to be an attempt on his life. It would be easy for it to happen, Aelin could think of loads of ways to kill a man in a crowded space — some as simple as pricking him with a needle infected with a deadly and fast acting disease.

“Aelin?” Her eyes shifted from the map of the ballroom in front of her, flecked with pins of various colors to show where each person of the Cadre would be, and where Adarlan’s Private Guard would be throughout the castle. “Are you okay?” Chaol asked her, bracing his hands on the table. Aelin nodded.

“Yes, sorry,” she offered with the wave of her hand, noticing that everyone had moved away from the table. “Did you need something?”

“I was just, it’s probably inappropriate but I wanted to ask —“

“She’s busy,” Rowan’s voice sounded behind her, low and hard. Aelin felt her blood run cold through her veins, the anger no doubt glowing in her eyes as she spun on him.

“Do you want to share with the class why you don’t get to speak for me anymore?” Her voice had the same lethal quiet that he’d only heard a handful of times before — all of which happened to be in the worst years of their relationships when she had begun to turn indifferent on him after she thought the same had happened to him. Rowan’s own eyes flashed as the muscle at his jaw feathered and he turned, leaving the room. Aelin turned back to face Chaol, her eyes fluttering closed for a moment before she forced a grin onto her lips. “Still interested?” To her surprise, he let out a low laugh.

“Rowan Whitethorn is your ex boyfriend?” When Aelin nodded, he drummed his fingers on the table. “I’d make the whole, ‘I can take him’ remark, but we both know that I absolutely can’t do that. I can, and, would like to take you out though.”

“I don’t mix business and pleasure anymore. It gets entirely too messy, exhibit A. Thank you, though. I’m flattered. We’ll see you tomorrow,” Aelin forced another smile, but only barely before she moved to join Fenrys who was waiting for her by the door. She didn’t speak the entire ride home.

~*~

The door to the bedroom was half open when Rowan wandered down the hall. He wanted to apologize to Aelin about snapping earlier, about hurting her so badly time and time again. No light shone from within as he nudged the door open with his fist, and he completely stopped in his tracks.

Aelin was bent over, her back arched like in a feline way as Fenrys plowed into her over and over. The sounds she made were sounds that he had coaxed from her time and time again, sounds that she had even confessed before nobody had been able to get her to make but him. But here was Fenrys, pulling those same breathy moans, the near screams as he fucked her with her hair pulled back in his fist. Her mouth fell open as she met Rowan’s eyes, as she let out another moan as Fen began to kiss up the center of her back as they both came down from a high —

When he sat up, he was drenched in sweat. He swung his legs over the side of the bed and tripped in the tangled sheets that were wrapped around his ankles resulting in the wind being knocked clean out of his lungs when he came in contact with the cold stone floor. Rowan forced himself to his feet and ran down the hall, through the kitchen and the living rooms toward the other side of the manor where Fenrys’ bedroom was. He was less than gentle in throwing the door open to find — Fenrys, out cold and fully clothed. The side of the bed that Aelin should have been on was empty, made up and completely undisturbed. Fenrys didn’t even move as the door hit the wall other than to shift onto his side and let out a loud snore.

Rowan’s hands clawed through his hair as he walked back toward his bedroom. A low growl escaped his throat as he tugged on the ends of his murky blonde locks, entirely too frustrated with how his life was going at the moment. There was no one to blame but himself, he knew, but it didn’t make his shit-show of a life any less irritating.

“What are you doing?” Her voice startled him so bad that he jolted, head whipping to the direction of the kitchen. Aelin was looking at him with a brow raised, laptop open before her and a steaming cup of tea in her hands. Rowan’s eyes fluttered closed as he pinched the bridge of his nose and let his other hand fall to his hip.

“Gods above, you scared the hell out of me.”

“I can see that,” she licked her lips and, when he looked at her, tilted her head to the side slightly. “Were you checking on me?” Rowan hesitated, but nodded.

“I had a nightmare,” he explained, running his hand over his face. “What are you doing up?”

“I haven’t been sleeping lately. Nightmares wake me up anyway, what’s the point?” Nightmares of you fucking other women is what she didn’t say, but didn’t have to. It was there in the edge of her voice, which was sharp like a carefully forged blade. “Do you think we have much to worry about tomorrow?”

“I think that if we’re all alert, it will be fine. We’ve been in worse situations.” He shrugged his shoulders. “You should try to get some sleep.”

“Yeah,” she replied, but her voice was distant, her eyes glazed over. Aelin shut her laptop and put the cup of tea down on the counter, her eyes staying distant. She looked tired, the most tired he’d ever seen her and he had been around when her parents had died. When Sam had died. “Goodnight.”

“Aelin?” She paused where she lingered in the opposite doorway of the kitchen, some twenty feet between them, but she didn’t turn to look at him. “I’m sorry for this afternoon.”

“It didn’t stop him from asking, or stop me from saying yes,” was all she said as she walked away. Rowan stayed rooted to the spot, his eyes following her down the hall until she disappeared into Fenrys’s bedroom. It took him longer than he cared to admit before he was able to make himself go back to his room and try to sleep.

~*~

The ballroom of the palace was full of people dressed to the nines for yet another charity gala. Aelin’s gown was made of heavy black velvet and pooled at her feet with the back dropping into a low v. Every time Rowan placed his hand there to guide her, he touched her bare skin and she had to fight herself to avoid clenching her jaw. It was even more infuriating that he looked as good as he did, how they looked every bit the power couple that they pretended to be.

“I’m a lucky man,” he’d drawled to someone who had made the comment of how absolutely stunning Aelin looked, how breathtaking and show-stopping the dress she wore was. It had been an effort to not shove at him, to not tell the woman that he’d cheated on her – effectively ruining both their lives. But she’d managed, and had even been able to steer Rowan away so she could get more champagne.

“Can you please stop touching me,” she breathed into her champagne flute, looking up at him beneath heavily made up lashes.

“We have a cover –”

“That we can maintain perfectly fine without you touching me, I just,” her voice cracked and she let out a breath, eyes falling shut. “Please, Rowan. I can’t take it.”

“Okay,” he said, a terse nod of his head. “I’m sorry.” Aelin had just started to nod her head when the shouting started, and then everything happened quickly – too quickly – immediately after.

Across the hall, Fenrys dove on Dorian, taking him down to the ground and covering his body with his, effectively becoming a human shield for the Crown Prince. All over the room, Lorcan covered the king, Connall the queen, and Vaughan the young prince. A shot echoed through the room and bits of the ceiling clattered to the floor. Another gunshot rang out and the chandelier in the center of the ballroom crashed to the floor. The screaming intensified as people were crushed by the weight of the gold fixture, some of them impaled with the sharp crystals they had been admiring moments before.

A third shot rang and Aelin stumbled into Rowan, his hands catching her shoulder. Instantly, she was pale as a sheet, somehow feeling the most pain she’d ever felt and nothing at all. Her eyes drifted from Rowan’s face that was also too pale, as she lifted a shaky hand to her right shoulder. When she pulled it away from the high neckline of her dress, her fingers were drenched with blood. She had been able to feel the bullet, half protruding from her skin.

“Ro,” she gasped out, her hand going to his face as she collapsed to the floor. Aelin’s blood was swiped across his cheek, her fingers shaking as hard as the rest of her body as she gazed up at his handsome face.

“I’ve got you. Stay with me, baby. Stay with me,” he repeated over and over, until another shot rang out, one that hit lower in her back, and a fifth had Rowan jerking back.

She wasn’t able to see what happened next. Rowan let out a string of curses that she heard so distantly as if he’d said it from across the room, his hands slipped away from her body. Aelin tried to focus on him, but her breathing quickened and her eyes crossed. Darkness had claimed her entirely before her head hit the floor.

~*~

Two days later at the hospital, Fenrys was leaning against Aelin’s bed, one of his hands in hers. His face was red and splotchy - anyone who looked at him would know that the events of today had been some of the worst he had experienced. Aelin was still unconscious, having lost so much blood. Her skin was still so pale, he could see the map of blue veins that trailed under her skin. Even her lips and hair seemed to be more pale than usual. With a tube down her throat to aid in her breathing, Fenrys had never seen her look so…fragile. Gone was the golden girl that had the personality of a wildfire. In her place lay a woman whose flame barely managed to flicker in the wind.

Behind him, footsteps trudged into the room and he didn’t have to look to know that it was Lorcan, coming to check on his fallen soldier. Fenrys did watch, however, when Lorcan ran a hand down the side of her face, brushed a thumb over her jaw.

“We walked straight into that trap,” he said quietly, pausing to run his tongue over his teeth. “It was exactly what they wanted. Us to worry about the Crown, thinking we’d be so focused on protecting others we would leave each other vulnerable. I failed her.”

“None of us saw it coming, Lor. Aelin hasn’t mentioned Hammel in years. Not since her parents. I didn’t even know he was out of prison, I don’t even know how he got out of prison. Unless it…” Fenrys frowned, his eyes shifting the transparent skin at Aelin’s wrist. His fingers traced the veins there as he processed the thought.

“Unless it was an inside job,” Lorcan said, his hand falling to his side. “We were set up.”

“When she wakes up and -”

“I know,” Lorcan tried to interject, but Fenrys turned to look at him. He shook his head as he gestured to Aelin, unconscious in the bed with an oxygen cannula hooked in her nostrils, IVs in her hand.

“You don’t. You weren’t there, you didn’t know her when Sam…When Sam and her parents were killed? She went…dark. I’ve never seen her like that before, I hoped I’d never have to see it again. When she wakes up and finds out he’s gone, that he was taken…there will be no accounting for what she does.”

As if on cue, her eyes flew open and she began to choke. Loud, gasping sounds as Lorcan ran to the door to yell for help. Aelin’s arms flailed wildly as she choked and gasped for any semblance of air, her throat burning like she had swallowed hellfire. It didn’t take long for her to grip the tube in her mouth and pull until it was out.

She gripped Fenrys’s sweatshirt in her fist, spit dripping from her wan lips and tears pouring from her eyes as her chest heaved. A nurse and injected something into her IV. Something to soothe her nerves and panic and pain, she told her, before she rushed back out of the room in search of her doctor.

It took several moments of Aelin gasping, one hand still clutching the hem of Fen’s hoodie so hard she thought she might rip straight through the fabric, the other gripping Lorcan’s fingers with her eyes closed until she seemed to find her footing. It slowly became easier to breathe, the pain in her throat turning more to a rawness, but the pain in her shoulder and abdomen had her letting out a sob of pain.The white bandages at her shoulder and hip were beginning to bloom a red rose of blood.

“When I find out who is gone?” She choked out, her words broken by gasps and sobs as she slumped back against the bedding, pain coursing through every cell of her body. Whatever the nurse had given her was beginning to make the edges of her consciousness a fuzzy haze. “Where is Rowan?”


	14. Eavesdrop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Oh, don’t say that it’s over  
Oh, no, say it ain’t so  
Let’s let the stars watch, let them stare  
Let the wind eavesdrop, I don’t care  
For all that we’ve got, don’t let it go  
Just hold me  
eavesdrop // the civil wars

**Two Weeks Later  
**

“Ace?” The sound of the voice, too far away to pinpoint with of them it was, echoed through the warehouse below the apartment she had acquired set her teeth on edge. Her tongue ran over her teeth as she debated locking the apartment door, then decided he would bust it down anyway. It was like this every few days. One member of the Cadre would come back to her apartment. They would take turns coming to ask her how she was doing. Was she okay. Fenrys came most often, sometimes with Connall. Vaughan came occasionally. Gavriel had come a handful of times. At one point, they’d even flown Aedion in from the base he was on in Wendlyn to try to talk to her. 

A knock. 

“Aelin? Galathynius, open up.” Lorcan. That was new. When she said nothing, the knob jiggled and after a beat, the door flew open. He didn’t even bother to pause, just stalked into the apartment like he owned the place and dropped into the chair next to her. 

“By all means,” she said flatly, “make yourself at home.” 

“My dislike for you is mild on a good day. You’re arrogant, self absorbed when it comes to so much shit. Sometimes you are such a bitch that I just.” Lorcan closed his fist and tapped it to his forehead. “But you’re a good soldier. You are my soldier, and I’ll be damned if you don’t take my job from me one day. But you have to stop.” When she didn’t say anything, her staying focused on the map, he leaned forward and rubbing the bridge of his nose, then turned his head to really look at her.

Aelin had never looked worse. She knew that. Turns out that getting shot in the shoulder really fucks you up. Even worse was when she woke up, choking on the tube and throwing her arms around, she’d ignored the pain that had burned through every place on her body in her panic. That had only made the injury to her right shoulder worse all over again. Now, having had a second surgery just eight days ago, there was intense amounts of pain despite the obnoxiously uncomfortable sling she had to wear most of the time that gave her shoulder extra support. At present time, she had such limited use of her right hand because of the damage to the muscles and tendons in her shoulder. Less severe was the shot to her back, because by some grace of Mala, had been a clean bullet wound through the skin, missing anything major. In truth, she had been lucky. 

“You didn’t show up for physcal therapy today,” Lorcan finally said, finger trailing over some of the notes that she had scribbled all over the map. Things were color coded, there were stars drawn on other places, more than one big red X. 

“I didn’t care to know what a shit job my body is doing at healing. You won’t let me help find him despite the shit job you’re all doing.” 

“Aelin. Gods above. We’re trying to find him and you _know_ that. I get that you’re having a hard time and I know what he means to you but what the hell do you think you’re going to accomplish? You can’t use your dominant hand for shit, your bullet wound still bleeds when you use too much energy because you won’t just calm down and rest like you’re supposed to.” Aelin’s eyes fluttered shut, silent tears falling down her face

It wasn’t a new revelation. She hated herself. Hated that she was hurt, hated that Rowan had been taken when it was her that was supposed to have been. It was Hamel’s face on the security tapes, a man she’d managed to take down in a sex trafficking ring. When Hamel had been hit with a bullet to his arm, he’d fallen, and his apparent lover had stormed at Aelin, screaming and drawing a gun in the process. So Aelin had fired, hit the woman in the heart, and put the entire thing out of her mind. Hamel had been arrested, put in prison, and had broken out six months later. For awhile, Aelin was paranoid. Watched her back. But at some point the fear dissipated. Fear that Rowan kept at bay by holding her through the night. 

Aelin knew that all of this was why she was being targeted. Why Rowan had been taken. An eye for an eye. She would be lying if she said she had much hope left. Hope he was coming back to her, hope that he was even alive. 

These days she was just thankful she hadn’t opened a box with his head inside. 

“One of the first nights after you had shown up on base as our newest member, despite his anger Rowan came to my quarters. I’ve known Rowan for a long time, Aelin. And after you left him I had never seen so much pain in a person. He deserved it, absolutely. But the night he came to my quarters, sat with his head in his hands, and made me promise that if there was ever a moment when it was him or you, that we save you. The tone of his voice, the way he sounded. It was raw and rough and I could tell how serious he was. There was a certain level of threat to his voice that told me if I did the opposite he’d throttle me. So I said okay. During the first week of us being here, he made me promise again. ‘She is all that matters. I don’t care about anything else,’ He’d said. So I made good on that promise. I had to either get you or him out. And I chose you because it’s what he’s asked—begged me to do more than once.” 

She didn’t say anything, just shook her head a single time, pressed her lips together in a thin line, and left the room. A few moments later, she heard the front door open and close, and she collapsed on the floor and cried until there were no more tears in her body. 

~*~

It took longer than she cared to admit to shimmy into her black stealth suit. The pain in her shoulder made her see stars, but she finally managed. She had strapped guns and knives to the left side of her body, only one knife on the right side for desperate measures. She was fully capable of taking down men with just her left arm, but she refused to let herself be completely defenseless if someone came up on her right. She knew it would hurt like hell but she found herself incapable of caring about whatever pain she would be in. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered but Rowan. 

Aelin was also smart enough to mark where she was going on the map on her table. It was the only location circled in thick black marker, the actual address scribbled to the side. Hamel wanted Aelin, that much she knew. Knew he would want Aelin watch him kill Rowan. And knew he would do it the same place Aelin had killed the woman he had been with. She didn’t even remember her name. Maybe she should have, but it was just another thing she didn’t care about. Couldn’t care about. Either way, she would give him what he wanted, except Rowan wasn’t going to die.

Aelin was. 

~*~

By the time she’d reached the piss poor excuse for a house, the moon was at its highest position in the sky, the stars bright and vibrant this far out of the city. It was well past midnight and under it would have been beautiful under different circumstances. 

Getting into the house was too easy. They weren’t even trying to defend the space and she was an expert at picking locks. It was silent inside, so silent that she would have heard a pin drop. Aelin had never been more thankful for the boots that went with the suit because they were completely soundproof. It was perfect for missions such as these, when she needed to be as undetected as possible. 

She heard a creak of a floorboard somewhere above her, and decided to start there, silently making her way up the stairs. She flattened her body against the wall, the mask over her face and the hood over her head making her nearly invisible in the darkness. With clenched teeth, she proceeded down the hall, stopping at the first door. Carefully – so, so carefully – she turned the knob and opened the door, slipping her thin body into the room. She shut the door behind her with no sound or resistance. Aelin was hardly breathing as she took in a sleeping figure in the bed. Soundlessly, she pulled one of her knives from a sheath on her hip, approached the figure, and slit their throat from ear to ear. His eyes flew open for a single moment and then he was dead. The man didn’t even have time to choke on his own blood. 

When she approached the door again, she pressed her ear to the wood to listen for any sign of movement outside. When she heard nothing, she cracked the door open and slid back out into the hall, making her way to the next room down the line. 

It was the same story: Sleeping man, slit throat, no time to choke. It was impossible to not be more suspicious of how easy it was. Almost too easy, but she supposed they would have to sleep at some point, and someone would have to be guarding Rowan, which couldn’t be an easy task. 

Unless he’s incapacitated. 

The thought made the blood in her veins absolutely boil. 

There was movement in the room with the dim glow, and before searching the room she knew had people, she decided to search the rest of the house. She couldn’t imagine a prisoner being kept in a room that was so easy to escape. It would have been too easy for him to escape. 

She crept back down the stairs, careful to be as light on her feet as she could. The rest of the house was seemingly empty, but in the kitchen there was a door. It was padlocked and likely lead down to a basement. That door seemed the most likely place that Rowan was being kept, so she began to pick the lock, eyes fluttering shut when the click of the lock was too loud for her liking. Frozen, she waited to hear any sort of sign of someone coming downstairs. When she heard nothing, she removed the lock from the latch, pocketed it so no one would be able to easily lock them back in, and slipped into the room. 

She was greeted by a set of stairs that she followed down into the ground. The glow from the light was so dim that it took her a moment for her eyes to adjust. Aelin had been right about it being a basement – it took a moment for her to get all the way down the stairs. When she reached the bottom, she was absolutely breathless. 

Rowan was tied to a chair with rope. His head was hanging down like he was some sort of unconscious, whether he had been knocked out or sleeping, she didn’t know. Aelin didn’t hesitate to run over to him, her hands cupping his face. 

“Come on, baby. Wake up. Please wake up. We have to get you out of here,” she whispered, fingers careful to avoid bruises and cuts that covered his face. It took a moment of her patting the side of his face before his eyes slowly cracked open, and when they did they were filled with tears. 

“What – Aelin no. No, you can’t be here,” he ground out, but she shook her head, saying nothing as she moved to untie him. 

Aelin had just began to pull a knife from her thigh holster when splitting pain exploded in her head as someone knocked her unconscious. 

  
~*~

When she woke up, she had the worst headache she had ever had and her shoulder was on fire. Dizzily, she lifted her head and met Rowan’s eyes. Part of her was relieved; the other part angry. They were sitting close enough that their knees were almost touching. Like Rowan, her hands were tied behind her back. That explained the shoulder pain. 

“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, her eyes fluttering closed. Tears slipped down her cheeks, from both pain and guilt. 

“What could you possibly be sorry for, love?” He asked softly, his foot nudging against hers the best it could despite the rope tied around his ankles. It was the only way he could touch her, the only way he could reach her. 

“The last conversation we had. I was telling you not to touch me. And I feel so, so guilty. I just. I’m sorry.” 

“Gods above, Ace. I don’t blame you for that. I could never blame you for that,” he said, his voice heavy with his lilting accent that she loved so much. Aelin nodded, but still felt the guilt in her gut. She had been replaying that conversation in her mind for weeks now, wishing she hadn’t said it. In truth, she had never felt so desperate to touch him. 

Behind her back, her fingers fumbled with the rope having seen the knot that had Rowan’s hands had been tied with. Luckily for both of them, they both knew how to untie it. Even luckier, the idiots hadn’t found the knives that were concealed under her sleeves. Aelin had a very small blade just above her palm, and if she could just –

The door to the basement flew open. Heavy footsteps clomped down the stairs, and Aelin couldn’t help but roll her eyes. Whoever Hamel had working for him were flat out stupid which had led to their original arrest. Even dumber for them to not pat her down thoroughly enough. With a slight flick of her wrist, the little blade shot down into her hand, cutting her skin in a long gash. Forced to grip the blade to try to work it down into her hand, her fingers and palm screaming in pain. It took everything she had to not cringe. Rowan, noticing the slight change in her face, furrowed his brow and Aelin made an imperceptible nod with her head as Arobynn Hamel himself stepped off the bottom step into the basement. 

Aelin’s face was school into neutrality as she arched a single brow at him, waiting for him to speak but the words never came. Instead, he pulled a gun from the waistband of his pants, the idiot, and caressed the trigger the way a lover caresses a cheek. 

“Can I help you?” She asked him, licking her lips slowly. There was a gash there, the metallic tang of blood on her tongue. Arobynn let out a low laugh the same time Aelin began to saw through the rope that bound her, careful to be prepared for the rope to loosen and fall into her hands. 

Another person hopped off the bottom step, a man she didn’t know. In his hands he held two daggers, twirling them between his fingers. She rolled her eyes, doing anything to make it look like she wasn’t scared. Truthfully, she was terrified. Terrified that if she wasn’t quick enough Rowan would receive a bullet to the head and she would be left with the guilt that she had never told him that she forgives him, had never told him she loved him one last time. 

“You know you have the wrong guy, right?” She quirked a brow, looking over at Rowan with distaste, her hand still working to cut through the rope. Her shoulder was begging her to stop, begging for that sling she hated so much. “This piece of shit cheated on me. We haven’t been together for years. So do me a favor and put a bullet through his brain so I can get out of here and never have to see either of you ever again.” The rope finally snapped and she was able to shimmy her hands out before it fell to the ground. 

“Why come for him then?” His eyes narrowed, and Rowan’s face was indecipherable. 

“Because it’s so much easier to ask you to do it than me. I could offer you a pretty penny,” she drawled, watching as Arobynn caressed that trigger again, clearly debating the offer. Aelin cocked her head to the side as, once again – the idiot – knelt down next to Aelin. He didn’t look at her or Rowan, just focused on the gun in his hand. 

It was all she needed.

Aelin whipped her hands around, stabbing the knife through Hamel’s neck with her right hand. White hot pain shot through her arm and back, but she didn’t let it slow her down as she wrapped the rope around his neck, ripping out the knife and swiping down Rowan’s leg to unsnap the rope. 

She had moved so fast that the man with the daggers had barely made it to Rowan by the time he was on his feet, swinging his free leg around to knock the man to the ground. Aelin tightened the rope around Hamel’s neck the same time Rowan managed to jump backwards, effectively landing on the crumpled assassin. The chair shattered beneath his body and he rolled backwards until he was able to push onto his feet. 

Aelin slit Arobynn’s throat and kicked him in the chest, his blood spraying across her face. It was then that they heard footsteps up above, the floorboards creaking under the weight of whoever was up there. Rowan turned his back to her and she cut his hands free of it’s bindings, jerking her gun from her thigh holster and preparing to shoot whoever came through the door. 

Except it wasn’t more of Hamel’s associates. It was the Cadre, pouring down into the basement with guns drawn and eyes blazing. 

“You’re late,” she said flatly, moving over to Rowan and searching his face to make sure he was okay as he could be. Lorcan rolled his eyes, Fenrys was trying not to smile.

“You know you could get discharged for this, right?” Lorcan asked, and Aelin shrugged her left shoulder, wincing in pain as the movement of her muscles shot pain across her upper back. 

“I’m okay,” he said softly, run his fingers along her cheek. She turned her face to kiss his palm and leaned her forehead against his chest. 

“Can someone get me a medic?” And then she was falling toward the floor, completely unaware of Rowan catching her before she hit the ground. 

~*~ 

Once again, she woke up to the beeping of machines, but this time there was no tube down her throat. There were two hands wrapped around hers and something pressing against her thigh. When her eyes cracked open, she let out a sigh and tears immediately poured out of her eyes. 

He looked like hell. His face was swollen and bruised and he had stitches above his eyebrow. The hands that encased hers had gashes on them as well, and Aelin wondered how bad it must be hurting for how tightly he gripped her hand. She couldn’t help but wonder how bad the cut on his leg was from when she cut the rope, knowing it had cut into his flesh. It couldn’t have been too bad, as he was able to move with agility when she cut him free, but she was still worried. Still felt horrible.

“Ro,” she croaked out, and his head immediately shot up and then he was standing and smoothing down her hair. Rowan’s eyes searched her and flicked down to her shoulder, looking for any sign of anything that would hint to her not being okay. 

“Hi baby,” he breathed, satisfied with his inspection. His lips pressed to her forehead, her cheeks, and finally her lips and she let out a quiet sob when he rested his forehead against hers. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry. For everything. For all of it.” 

“I know. I know.” He kissed her again, a little harder this time until she let out a slight whimper. Her lip was still split, but she shook her head when he opened his mouth to apologize. “I love you,” she said quietly, bringing her good hand up to run through his hair. “I love you so much.”

“I don’t deserve you,” he sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed. “Gods, baby. I love you. I love you but you deserve so much better than me.” Aelin frowned then, shaking her head quickly. She knew what was coming as she shook her head harder.

“Don’t say it. Rowan Whitethorn, don’t you dare. Don’t.” The tears she had been crying flowed freely, soaking the gown she wore as they dripped from her chin. Every word, her voice as shattered as her heart.

“I love you, but I can’t let you be with me. I’m not good for you.” He spoke slowly, his voice breaking over his words. All the while his hands smoothed down her hair. Rowan was crying just as hard as she was. 

He brought her hand up to her lips and kissed her knuckles, then leaned forward to kiss her one last time. “I love you.” He kissed her forehead one more time, released her hand, and disappeared out the door. 

Aelin couldn’t help but think that the pain in her heart was infinitely worse than the pain in her shoulder. 


	15. I love you

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I can’t escape the way, I love you  
I don’t want to, but I love you  
I love you - Billie Eilish

For the first time in her life, Aelin gave absolutely no fucks about anything. She laid on her couch and drank and drank until she was ranked, then took her pain medicine to further dull the pain. The pain in her shoulder, the pain in her head, the constricting pain of her heart. 

It was hard to not doing anything at all. She had always been a busy body, always training, always trying to get better at every skill under her belt and learn new ones. The military had been her life since she was eighteen. Five years of her life dedicated to her country, and just as she had gotten the job she truly deserved as part of the Cadre, that had been taken away from her, too. 

Sam. Her parents. Her job. Rowan. 

It was hard to wrap her head around it. Most days she had wished so desperately that she had been killed by Hamel or one of his lackeys. It would have hurt far, far less than this. 

Someone began pounding on her door, and she didn’t bother moving. 

“Aelin!” Fenrys. Her eyes shifted to the door, and she waited a moment before yelling that he could come in. When he entered, he stopped dead in his tracks. He hadn’t been over yet — Aelin insisted to everyone that she was fine, everything was fine. And then she would drown herself in alcohol. 

That he was shocked by her appearance would be an understatement judging by the look on his face. She knew how she looked. Her hair was in a messy bun on top of her head, half of it falling out and loose golden strands covered her face. The sweatpants she wore were huge on her — she hated that they were Rowan’s and that they were her favorites — and the t-shirt she wore was baggy and probably had stains. Not to mention the puffiness and dark circles under her eyes. Then there was the fact that she was clutching a bottle of whiskey to her chest. 

“Aelin. What are you…are you okay?” With one finger, she spun the lid of the whiskey off, watching as it bounced onto the floor and rolled over to his feet. Her eyes stayed fixed on the screen as she took a long drink. It took her a moment, but she finally shifted her eyes to him when he sat down on the edge of the coffee table, reaching out to brush her hair back. 

It wasn’t like her. Falling apart like this, being a mess, getting drunk day in and day out to numb any of the pain. She had never been this kind of girl, not even when her parents had died because she hadn’t wanted to disappoint them. But with Rowan…the pain was so intense and terrible that it made the pain in her shoulder feel numb. The alcohol was all that worked to ease her mind, despite how dizzy she was on a daily basis. 

“I’m fine,” she said, but her words were slurred. Aelin’s eyes fluttered shut as she tried to get more comfortable on the couch, wincing when pain shot through her shoulder, down her back, and across her shoulder blades. She gave up and slumped back down. “Just swell.” 

“Ace…”

“Like what was it? Y’know?” She slung her hand out to the side, whiskey sloshing out of the bottle onto the floor. Aelin didn’t flinch. Fenrys, however, sighed and made his way to the kitchen only to return with towels. He kneeled on the floor and cleaned up the mess, then sat back on his heels and smoothed his hand over her hair. “Like what did I do? How do you tell someone you love them and leave them?” A pause. “ I hate him.” 

“I know, love.” 

“I hate him.” This time when she spoke, her voice cracked and tears began to openly flow down her face. 

~*~ 

Fenrys had made her take a bath, actually standing in the bathroom with her and helping her where her shoulder was concerned. He’d helped her clean the surgical wounds, helped her wash her hair. They were close enough that she didn’t care if he saw her naked, she was just thankful for the help. 

The next morning, she looked a little better. Her hair was clean but still in a ponytail, she still wore a pair of Rowan’s sweats and a T-shirt from her college. But overall she looked better. She was debating calling Fen to ask him to bring her food when someone knocked on the door. 

“Oh thank the gods,” she muttered under her breath, unlocking the door. “I was just about to call y—“ The way her nostrils flared was entirely involuntary. Rowan stood in the doorway, holding a bag of food and a drink in his hands. 

“I figured you hadn’t eaten breakfast yet. I’m sure your shoulder makes it hard.” His voice was quiet, his accent lilting and beautiful, curling over some sounds and crashing over others. Aelin’s jaw set and she stared at the bag in his hands.

“What is it.” Not a question, but a demand. 

“Chocolate croissant, chocolate hazelnut croissant, a cinnamon roll. Chocolate milk. I didn’t know what you’d be hungry for but they used to be your favorites so.” Rowan kept standing awkwardly in the doorway until she sighed, her eyes fluttering shut and she stepped aside to let him in. He sat down on the couch and placed her food on the coffee table, and when she sat down she pulled the chocolate hazelnut croissant out of the bag, curled up in the corner of the couch, and quietly munched while she stared blankly at the TV.

Rowan shifted where he sat, one arm resting on the back of the couch, the other on the armrest. Aelin could feel him looking at her but she refused to look at him. Refused to look at his stupid eyes and his stupid face and his stupid tattoo and listen to his stupid voice with that stupid accent. Her eyes stayed focused on the TV that was playing Golden Girls reruns, the volume so low she could barely hear. There was still a bottle of whiskey on the coffee table next to her pain medication. She could feel him looking at that, too. 

It was suffocating, sitting in this room with him. Sitting on the couch they had spent too many nights curled up watching movies, making love on, reading with her head in his lap or his in hers. Painful that she couldn’t find any words to say to him, that he couldn’t seem to find any for her. Aelin didn’t even understand why he was here. He didn’t want to be with her. So why come over at all?

She kept nibbling on the croissant, hating that it was so good. That it was from her favorite bakery in downtown Orynth, that downtown was so far away from his apartment that she knew he had gone way out of the way to pick it up for her. She had just opened her mouth to ask him why he was there when he finally spoke, his fingers drumming on the back of the couch. 

“I wanted to come see you before we left.” It was that same, soft tone. The way that people talk to small animals so that they don’t spook and run away. The way a venus flytrap likely lures in it’s prey only to snap them in half. 

Aelin paused her chewing for a moment before she swallowed slowly. She licked her lips and leaned forward, setting the croissant on the table and sat back up, adjusting the strap on her sling. It was a ridiculous contraption, one that bound her arm to her body so that it had no chance of moving. She hated it. 

“You…wanted to see me…before you left.” She found herself at a loss and she finally turned to face him. “Do you remember the time that I risked my career and my life, which – by the way – I had no intention of walking out of that house. You were going to get out. And then I fucked up my shoulder so bad that I had to have another insanely painful surgery that will leave a huge scar on my shoulder. I did all of that for you. Oh,” she started laughing, a dry sort of laugh that had no amusement or joy. “Do you remember that time that I woke up in the hospital and you told me you loved me and then said you didn’t want to be with me? Because I remember. You wanted to see me before you left? Gods, Rowan. Fuck off.” 

His jaw was clenched and he stared down at his hands that were in his lap as he looked up at her, saying her name so softly that she almost missed it. She hated how beautiful it always sounded coming off his lips. 

“It’s cruel. For you to come here? It’s fucking cruel,” she was crying by then, frustrated and shaking her head. When he got up and approached her she shoved him with her good arm. “Thank you for the pastries. Now please get out of my apartment because I can’t breathe with you standing so close to me.”

And then she disappeared into her bedroom, the door slamming behind her. 

~*~

It had been six months since the rest of the Cadre had shipped out, and Aelin was finally on a plane to join them. It had taken a lot of physical therapy, but she had most of her mobility back. When she had tried to train to work on her hand to hand combat, there hadn’t been too much she’d been unable to do, and what she wasn’t able to do with her right arm, she could compensate with her left. It had taken a month for her to get cleared and she had cried when she got the okay to join the guys in Wendlyn. 

Dressed in the more casual of her military uniforms, she received multiple head bows and thanks from people as she walked past with her backpack over her shoulders. It was always nice to feel recognized for her service, but she didn’t do it for attention. She did it because she loved Terrasen, and she would go wherever they needed her to. 

When she walked out into baggage claim, she stood on her toes to look for Fenrys. When she finally spotted him – he was also in his uniform – she took off running and launched herself into his arms. He was her best friend, and she hadn’t seen him in entirely too long. Six months was a long time to go without seeing the only person that kept your head screwed on right. 

“Gods, I missed you so much,” she said into his neck. His arms squeezed her sides as he dropped her back onto her feet. 

“Show me the arm, show me the arm,” he tugged on her hand like a child, and her eyes rolled. Still, she showed him the full range of movement by making fake punches. 

“I can still kick your ass,” she pointed out, nudging him with her elbow as they left the airport. Fenrys laughed out loud, throwing his arm around her shoulders as she breathed in the warm air. The base they were at was in Doranelle, the buildings built of stone and surrounded by multiple rivers. It was stunning, and as they walked into the barracks she sighed with content. It was so, so much better than the shanty town in the wastes. Not as good as her apartment in Rifthold or her home in Terrasen, but still better than sleeping in a shack. 

She tossed her bag onto one of the bunks and changed into civilian clothes, making jokes and catching up with Fenrys while they walked across one of the large bridges. The water below was crystal clear, fish swimming up current and near the shore, children splashed and played. 

Terrasen had an alliance with Wendlyn, and the Cadre was there to help train new special force teams in all aspects. It was gruelling training, extremely exhausting. Aelin remembered her least favorite tests being drown-proofing and of course, like everyone always agreed, Hell Week. 

Drown-proofing was brutal because they bound you at the hands at feet and then you were pushed into a pool. They made you tread water, swim, do flips, retrieve objects, all while entirely tied up. For Aelin, it had been one of the hardest training exercises because she was the only woman amongst, literally, a sea of men. They gave her hell, they hit on her, were completely and utterly gross to her, It wasn’t until Rowan, Chief Petty Officer at the time, quite literally kicked their asses by making them spar with him in a ring. When he finished with the last guy, he told them that if he caught them treating Aelin any different because she was a woman again, he wouldn’t hesitate to make their lives even more of a Hell than they already were. 

They left her alone after that. Especially once she got in the ring and was able to kick all their asses with the exception of Rowan. 

The second worst part had been Hell Week, which was as bad as it sounds. Everyone was constantly moving, constantly training, and you were allotted four hours of sleep. For the entire week. You spend the week doing everything else you’d done through training, miles long open ocean swims, drown-proofing, obstacle courses, mile long runs. You ran on little food, barely enough water, and so little sleep that by the end you were so exhausted it took all your energy to not fall over. Aelin didn’t envy the poor bastards that were going through that training now. 

The sun had just begun to set when they walked into a bar, Connall and Vaughan immediately running to wrap her in an embrace. She was lucky to have these guys, she decided. It didn’t hurt that they were all easy on the eyes. So many women would want her position, but only if that position was on top of one of the men in the Cadre. 

Lorcan even held out a fist for her to bump, a slight smile to his mouth. It almost made Aelin suspicious seeing as how they had always been at odds with each other. He’d never been her biggest fan, but as her commander she knew he was glad that she’d made a successful recovery. 

“Do you want a drink?” She asked Fen, leaning close enough that her mouth almost brushed his ear because of how loud it was. The bar was absolutely packed. Fenrys shook his head, holding up the beer in his hand and then Aelin was working her way through the crowd. She accidentally bumped into a pretty brunette and apologized profusely. The girl had offered her a smile and said it was okay before disappearing through the throngs of people. 

After she got her drink, she squeezed back to their table with her straw between her teeth when she saw him standing beside Lorcan, saying something in his ear while that same pretty brunette from earlier stood next to him with her fingers on his elbow. 

All of the blood drained out of her body. The glass in her hand fell from her fingers and crashed into pieces on the floor, but she didn’t care. She pressed her hands against her stomach, forcing herself to take deep breaths. Rowan. With another woman. Standing less than twenty feet away from her. 

Aelin couldn’t speak, she couldn’t think, she couldn’t breathe. Her blood was pooling in her feet because it surely wasn’t coursing through her veins anymore and her mind was lost and her breaths were short and ragged and shallow. 

Six months. It had been six months and she was still pining over him like an idiot while he was doing whatever with other women. She couldn’t even think about what he’d been doing - the imagery of Rowan tangled in someone else’s body made her feel physically sick. 

Aelin forced herself to walk toward the table and when Rowan saw her the color drained from his face. Interesting. It seemed that he didn’t know she would be coming today. Much like she didn’t know he was with someone else. Funny how life works out. 

“I um,” she pointed vaguely behind her, shaking her head and then wrapping her arms around her stomach. “I dropped my glass back there, can one of you…I don’t know, tell someone?” Her eyes shifted to Rowan’s for less than a second. “I’m not feeling well, I think I’m going to walk back.” 

And then she was shoving her way out of the building, pressing her palms against the white stone to somehow ground herself as she took deep breaths. Before she knew it, she was sprinting to the end of the building to vomit into the grass, the acid burning her throat as it clawed her way out. She was stupid. So, so, rutting stupid. So godsdamend –

A hand braced her back, pulled her hair off her neck and blew cool air onto her skin where she’d started getting clammy. Knowing it was Fen, she let him rub up and down her spine while she stayed with her hands on her knees, eyes shut as she tried to regulate her breathing. It took everything she had to calm herself, to calm the fire roaring between her skull and in her veins before she finally stood and wiped her mouth off. Her hands were braced on her hips and his fingers were sliding over her arms in an attempt to calm her down. With her eyes still closed she leaned back against his chest, focusing still on breathing with her arms wrapped around her body. 

His forehead rested against the crown of her head for a moment, fingers still moving in soothing motions over her arms. 

His hand brushed her hair off her neck again, more cool air blowing against her too-hot skin. And then lips were pressed to the nape of her neck, the slope of her neck, and then the scar from her surgery. Aelin froze, her body tensing immediately. Not Fenrys. Fenrys didn’t kiss her like that. There was only one person on the planet that had ever kissed her so intimately, had ever pressed kisses along her back and neck when she was stressed or her anxiety was bad. 

When she spun on her heel, all she could do was shake her head at him. His eyes fell shut and he tucked his bottom lip between his teeth. She hated him. Hated how perfect he was, how beautiful he was, how soft his mouth had been on her skin. She hated the shade of his hair that perfectly reflected the moon, hated the green of his eyes and how they always seemed to know what she was thinking. 

She loved him. And she hated it. 

“Your girlfriend probably wouldn’t like you touching me like that, but I guess you don’t really care if you’re committed to someone or not do you?” It was a low blow. Such a low blow and the hurt immediately clouded his face, the way his eyes flashed painfully. 

“Aelin–” He’d started to say with an arm reached out for her, but as if to prove her point, the pretty girl stepped out of the bar. 

“Rowan?” His eyes fell shut and he ran his hand over the back of his head. 

“Please, just do two favors, yeah? Leave me the fuck alone and go to hell.” 

When she started walking down the street, her arms were hugging her body again. She didn’t think she was breaking apart this time. Aelin could feel it in every single bone. Every tendon and ligament had snapped, every organ was falling out of the hole in her neck, all of her bones were shattered and falling to the ground. 

If you were to ask Aelin what her pain was on a scale of one to ten, it would be a ten. The worst pain she had ever felt. 


	16. Hate u, love u

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I can’t see the end of this just wanna feel your kiss  
Against my lips and now all this time  
Is passing by, but I still can’t seem to tell you why  
It hurts me every time I see you  
Realize how much I need you  
I hate u, i love u // gnash

“She’s not his…girlfriend,” Fenrys said, leaning in the doorway of Aelin’s private quarters. She insisted she didn’t need them, but Lorcan said he didn’t feel like seeing her walk around in a towel. Eyes had rolled, and Aelin had trudged to the room and thrown herself onto her bed. 

Aelin looked up from where she sat, lacing up her boots and making sure her pants were tucked down into them. It was her first day assisting with training, and if she didn’t look like a hardass, the men wouldn’t take her seriously. A huge mistake on their part, but it tended to happen anyway. 

“I don’t care,” she said flatly, standing up and tucking her white t-shirt into her pants. 

“Aelin–”

“You should have told me! Like, what the fuck! Any of you could have told me. Any single one of you and you opted not to. And you evidently didn’t even tell Rowan I was flying in because he looked just about as surprised to see me as I was to see him with some girl hanging on his arm. You are my best friend. And that was shitty of you and I’m not going to lie, Fenrys, I’m really pissed about it.” She turned, shaking her head as she pulled her hair into a bun at the base of her skull.

“I’m sorry. I just– Fuck I didn’t want to hurt you. We don’t even know who she is to him, he doesn’t talk about her or anything.”

“And this was better? Jesus. That’s bullshit and you know it.” Another shrug of her shoulders and she pushed passed him and making her way outside, taking a large gulp of air.

It was more humid here than it was in Terrasen, the heat so different from the cold of the mountains and snow. Even their summers and springs were mild and beautiful. It was just hot and humid in Doranelle but still beautiful. 

She ignored the recruits and officers as she walked through, rolling her eyes when a few of them whistled at her. It was gross. Being around so much testosterone and not enough estrogen made the male brain so, so disgusting. 

For whatever reason, there weren’t many women in the military in Doranelle. There were no women on their special ops teams, which left Aelin with only male company. It made sense that there were no women. Aelin was the only one in Terrasen’s history to make it into special ops, much less be running with the most powerful special ops team probably ever. And she was damn proud of that fact. 

She walked across the campus, rubbing her palms into her eyes while she contemplated how her relationship with Rowan ended up so messy. It didn’t make sense. They had been made for each other, and everyone had agreed. Aelin even liked to think about how much her parents and Sam would have loved Rowan, how they would have approved of him. And then he cheated and got distant, and quit trying. He quit doing little things for her, he quit surprising her on long weekends. Their sex life had dwindled down when they had always been on each other before. They had been so passionate, so in love with each other that being with other people had never even computed for her. And now he was sleeping with someone else, and she found herself pausing to take a deep breath, face turned up to the sun. 

“Aelin!”

Of course. Of fucking course. Her jaw clenched and she kept walking, pushing the way her name sounded on his lips from her mind. The closer she got to the pool, the quicker she tried to walk until he was right behind her with his fingers grazing her elbow. 

“What do you want! Gods above, Rowan, what the fuck do you want?” Her hands were thrown out to the side, a hollow laugh climbing out of her throat. 

“Just– I’m–” he trailed off, running his hands through his hair. 

“I can’t look weak here. I am the only woman on this entire base, and I cannot look weak here. And you?” Her voice cracked and she shook her head, teeth running over her bottom lip. “You make me weak. I can’t focus when you’re around. And I hate it. And I hate you. And I just– I need you to please leave me alone. If you ever cared about me, you’d leave me alone. It’s fine that you’re over me I don’t–” She shook her head and wiped at her eyes. 

“Fireheart, please,” he reached up to brush his fingers across her cheek and she jerked back. 

“Please don’t touch me. Don’t call me that. I’m not doing this. I’m not a toy for you to play with. I’m the girl that was ready to die so that you’d be safe and you walked away. So just–” She shook her head and turned, jogging the rest of the way to the pool. 

~*~

She was screaming. Blood curdling screams that vibrated through her entire body, screams that made her throat raw as they clawed their way up and out of her throat, their dagger sharp nails ripping her body to pieces. Not only was she screaming, but thrashing: her arms falling into muscle memory of combat. But it was nothing compared to the way she kept screaming ‘no’ over and over. Her voice would crack, terror gripping through her entire being. Every single cell was fighting an imaginary threat–

“Aelin! Aelin, love. Wake up. Wake up it’s just–” Rowan didn’t have time to finish his sentence because she was slamming her hands against his chest, obviously trying to take blows to her face. When he caught her wrists, careful to be gently, she screamed louder. The entire metal bed rattled. “Aelin!”

She gasped, struggling against the grip he had on her hands as she tried to twist out of his grip. 

“It’s me. It’s just me. Look at me,” and then she wasn’t struggling anymore but blinking at him; her face completely crumpled. 

“Rowan,” she rasped, a sob ripping through her body, her throat. Aelin leaned forward to rest her forehead against his bare shoulder. “Rowan,” she said through another sob.

“I’ve got you. You’re okay. You’re safe. I’ve got you.” 

His hands slid up and down her back, his mouth pressing soft kisses to the top of her head while murmuring sweet nothings: that she was okay, that he was there, that it was just a nightmare. Surely he could feel her heart thundering in her chest, so close to exploding out of her body like a time bomb. 

Aelin grabbed one of his hands and pulled it into her lap, toying with his fingers while he told her to breathe. He was taking the same breaths as her to guide her through breathing until she calmed down enough. Part of her wanted to allow him to continue. The other part wanted him to never touch her again. 

The fact that he always knew how to calm her down, that he knew what steps to take to bring her down from a panic wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair that despite everything he’d done she just wanted him to stay with her, rocking her to sleep until her breathing evened out and she fell into a dream state. Not that she would be able to fall asleep tonight. The nightmares got worse every day. The entire six months she’d been in Orynth she’d been required to see a therapist, to talk about her feelings and mixed emotions. Truly, it had helped her sort out everything, she stopped having panic attacks during the day. The nightmares, however, never stopped. 

She was still shaking, unable to will her body to stop. When Rowan stood, she looked at him with her eyes wide in panic. 

“I’m not leaving, love,” he said softly, sitting back down with his back against the wall.

He grabbed her hand and tugged gently until she crawled onto his lap, her face pressing against his neck. Rowan’s scent was so familiar. He smelled like pine and snow and it had always reminded her of home. 

Reminded her that he was home, too. 

Except that he wasn’t. Except that the same hands that were brushing her hair from her neck had been on someone else’s body. Rowan had been inside someone else, and she didn’t even want to think about if it sated him, if he was pleased, if he was emotionally attached to her. It hurt too much. 

Still, she took a deep breath and traced her fingers up and down his side. Rowan was so warm and she was able to count the lines of his abdomen. His body had always been perfect from the first time he’d met her at her basic training. Perfectly chiseled, perfectly beautiful, perfectly tanned. 

With her heart beating at a normal pace, she lifted her head and rubbed her eyes. When she pulled her palms away they were soaked with tears. She could only imagine how splotchy and swollen her face was. The sigh that escaped her body was heavy. So, so heavy. 

His fingers tilted her chin back and he was searching her eyes despite her not looking at him. “Look at me.” Like an idiot, she did, and it hurt. 

And then his hands were cupping her face and his thumbs brushing her cheekbones and his nose grazing against hers and she didn’t have the power to stop. To tell him no. When he whispered her name softly, she remembered that she was supposed to be angry, but the way he said her name was the same way he used to mouth words against her skin. But it wasn’t the past anymore, because his lips were on her shoulder, her name being traced with his lips and she was a goner. 

When he started kissing up her neck she was a puddle of goo, her skin so hot that surely her bones would melt. His lips grazed her jaw and chin before those same lips that set her on fire were passing over hers like a ghost. 

“Aelin,” he whispered again, this time against her mouth. 

And then he was kissing her, softly at first before it turned into something needy. Something necessary like he’d been starving or drowning and she was the fresh air he inhaled once he surfaced. His tongue slid against the seam of her lips and she opened for him, sighing when he moved them so she was on her back and he lay atop her. Rowan’s hands dragged up and down her body, sliding beneath the t-shirt she wore to feel her skin. The feeling of his hands– calloused from so much training, from shooting guns and climbing ropes and wielding daggers– electrified her. 

But then she remembered that those hands had been on someone else. That he had likely touched her like this, that he had rocked his hips against hers the same way he was doing now. His lips had pressed against someone else’s skin and he had freely moaned in pleasure because of someone else. Rowan’s mouth had dragged over and marked another woman, his hands had slipped into the waistband of her pajamas and it became too much. 

So in a quick maneuver, she pushed his head away and rolled out from beneath him. This time when her chest rose and fell so quickly, it was for entirely different reasons. Aelin hated the effect that he had on her. 

“Aelin–”

“Please go. Please, Rowan. I am begging you.” 

At that, he ran his hand down his face and stood, pausing in front of her for a split second to press a kiss to his forehead. And then he was gone. 

~*~ 

The looks on the men’s faces when they saw Aelin standing with Lorcan and Rowan had them snickering quietly to themselves. You’d think that her being part of the Cadre would prove enough about her work ethic and skill, but because she was a woman they judged her. Misogyny ran rampant here. 

Aelin had her arms folded over her chest, nodding along to Lorcan’s game plan for the day. She was already sweating in her stealth suit, the black material absorbing the heat of the sun too well. 

The twins were helping a group perfect their sniping techniques. Vaughan was overseeing water competency. The others had commanders assisting them, but the commanders wanted to participate in hand to hand combat training because the way the Cadre was able to stealth kill and take men down with nothing but their hands. Aelin included. 

She toed the ground with the tip of her combat boots, still nodding to Lorcan’s instructions. The man was long winded as hell, and he’d repeated himself twice to make sure she understood. 

“You know, it’s weird. I have ears and an exceptionally competent brain,” she said, a brow raised as she looked up at him. Rowan snorted and Lorcan turned to address the men. 

“You are going to divide into three groups. We all have very different ways of handling hand to hand combat. Whitethorn is probably the most creative,” he shot Rowan a look who tried to not laugh. It was always the story of how he’d impaled a man with a table leg, pinning him to the wall in the process because it went straight through the drywall. 

“Galathynius is by far the fastest and has a unique skill set that can be difficult to master, but it’s incredibly useful for stealth kills.” The men standing before them looked at each other, slight grins on their faces. Aelin couldn’t wait to throttle each and every one of them.

“I have a more classic way of handling things so you’ll learn more basics from me, which are incredibly necessary and I can show you how to anticipate what your opponent is going to do next.” It was annoying that Rowan and Lorcan both were legends. At present time, Aelin was Terrasen’s best kept secret. 

“If you’re in group one, you’re with me,” Aelin said, letting out a sigh as she turned to walk to the area she would be training in. 

“What’s your skill set?” One of the guys asked her. He had brown hair and a perfect jawline. She pursed her lips and ran her tongue over her teeth. Later, she would find out that his last name was Samuels. 

“We’ll get to that because I want you to understand what the element of surprise can do for you in a fight. It could be crucial to whether or not you walk away or they do. Whitethorn and Salvaterre’s skills precede them. I’m sure you’ve all heard the stories, and if you haven’t go ahead and ask them. Whitethorn is particularly proud of the shit he’s accomplished. Now raise your hand if you have any idea who I am.” No hands raised, and Aelin grinned. “There’s a reason for that. Okay, I want all of you to form a pretty wide circle because we’ll need the space but not so far that you can’t observe well enough.” Surprisingly they did as she said, forming a large circle that she stood in the center of. 

“Why aren’t you wearing standard uniform?” Someone asked, none of the men before her hiding the way they were likely appreciating her body in the skin tight suit. 

“It’s my stealth suit.” She didn’t bother to elaborate. “Who wants to go first?” Nobody answered. 

“No offense, ma’am, but I don’t want to hit a girl.” 

Aelin snorted when a few of the others nodded in agreement. She even let out a low laugh. 

“Rowan!” She shouted, and his head whipped around. He held up a finger and said something to his group before jogging over to where she stood. “They don’t want to hit a girl.” This time, Rowan was the one to laugh. “Would you do the honors?” He braced his hands on his hips and nodded once, cracking his neck before he got into fighting stance. Aelin shook out her shoulders, ignoring the pain that shot down her arm. Shit. 

Rowan nodded once at her and then he was swinging. It was too easy for her to spin away from him, to avoid every hit that he threw at her. The ones she couldn’t avoid, she blocked with her forearm, not bothering to pull the punch that came in contact with his jaw. He got a few hits in on her, too, but not quite as many as she did. 

She managed to swipe his legs out from under him, and he swore when he hit the ground only for her to drop onto his chest. A flick of her wrist and her daggers were in hand, scissored over his neck. She laughed a little when she saw a small bead of blood and wiped it off his neck. 

“Godsdammit, Aelin,” Rowan breathed, laying on the ground for a few more seconds to catch his breath when she rolled off of him. She had completely knocked the breath out of lungs. When she held out her hand to help him up, he took it and rose to his feet. He was still breathing hard when he walked away. 

This time when nobody wanted to go first, it was out of fear. 

~*~ 

“There’s something so satisfying besting fifty men in a day. I can’t wait to do it again tomorrow,” she told Fenrys as they walked towards the city. Aelin was starving after burning so many calories and sweating off her body weight. She almost felt brand new after showering and had even put on makeup for their night out. Fenrys had let out a low whistle when she met him outside only for her to roll her eyes. 

“I can’t believe you knocked Whitethorn on his ass that hard.” 

“I haven’t beat him in awhile so it felt so, so good.” Fenrys huffed a laugh. “He heard me screaming last night. I was having a nightmare. He woke me up and held me for awhile. He kissed me.” Aelin’s lips were turned down in a frown and Fen cursed under his breath. 

“Did you–”

“No. I told him to leave. For once he actually listened to what I wanted and left,” she said as they walked into the bar. 

Fenrys squeezed her shoulder and made his way to the bar to get their drinks. Aelin slid into a chair and rested her chin in her hand, eyes scanning the crowd. She hated that she was looking for Rowan. Looking to see if he was with that girl. 

She felt so stupid. They hadn’t been together for years and yet she was still tripped up over the asshole despite everything he’d done for her. It made her weak, it made her distracting and it was– quite frankly– pathetic. Still, her eyes continued to scan the crowd. 

“Who are you looking for?” Aelin started where she sat, her hand flying up to her heart. He set a drink down in front of her, and she didn’t bother looking at him as she took a drink. 

“Fuck, Rowan.” She didn’t have to look to know he had a slight grin on his face. 

“You didn’t answer my question,” he pointed out, and Aelin finally turned her head to look at him. His green eyes were alight. Playful. Aelin rolled hers and looked down, swirling the little black straw. 

“You.” Her voice was soft and she couldn’t get herself to look at him. Rowan sat down next to her, his arm pressed against hers. She started to shake her head when he leaned over, so close that the low timbre of his voice sent chills all over her body. 

“I’m not sleeping with her. I never was.” 

“It’s not my business,” she shrugged her shoulders and took a long drink. The burn of the alcohol was welcome because his lips were still too close to her ear, she could smell him and feel his body heat. 

“I just wanted you to know.”

“Did…” she trailed off and furrowed her brow, not wanting to ask. 

“We kissed once. I felt absolutely nothing.” She looked over at him then, his face too close to hers. She nodded a single time and downed the rest of the alcohol in one gulp. After offering him a tight smile, she slid off the chair and made her way over to the bar. When she found Fenrys he was talking to Connall with his forearms leaning on the counter. Aelin ordered two shots and took them back to back. 

“You sent him over, didn’t you?” Her tone was accusatory, eyes narrowed. Fen gave her a sheepish smile and she rolled her eyes. Down the bar, she noticed that pretty girl that had been on Rowan’s arm the other night and decided she wasn’t quite in the mood to be out after all. 

Aelin had just reached the door when Rowan stopped her by catching her elbow. Quirking a brow, she looked up at him. Aelin was taller than the average girl, but Rowan still towered over her with his 6’4 frame. 

“Where are you going, love?” 

“Back to base. I don’t feel like being out.” There her stomach went again, doing somersaults in her body cavity. 

“Alone?” Aelin shrugged and nodded. Obviously alone. Nobody else was with her. “Like hell you are.” It made her snort and she walked outside anyway. Despite the loud music and chatter from the bar, she could hear Rowan’s exasperated sigh as he followed her outside. “Can I walk with you?” 

“You’re going to do it whether or not I say yes anyway,” she pointed out, giving him a flat look that had his lips turning up at the corners. Her eyes wandered down his arms, clenching her jaw at how his shirt barely contained his broad chest and muscular arms. It felt like the universe was out to get her. It probably was. 

“How’s your shoulder?” 

“It’s fine most of the time. I don’t have full range of motion but it’s close enough. The humidity is fucking with it though. It hurt so bad by the time we were done with those training sessions earlier that I took something for pain. I don’t have to do that often though.” Rowan nodded as she spoke, the two falling into a comfortable quiet. Every so often their hands would bump together, and Aelin was too tipsy to care to pull away. 

When they got back to base, she leaned against the door to her quarters and said, “Thank you for walking me.” 

He was standing too close. Memories flooded her mind as she remembered his hands all over her body, his mouth leaving trails across her skin. Almost involuntarily, she reached out to pick at the hem of his shirt, unable to look up and meet his eyes. Rowan placed his hands on either side of hers, his cheek pressing to her temple. Having Rowan this close was too intoxicating. She couldn’t think straight. 

When she finally looked up at him, his head was ducked down. Rowan didn’t move, merely rested his forehead against hers. He wasn’t going to make the first move this time. He was going to let her decide. 

Her hands ran up his chest and up his neck, stopping when her fingers were grazing his jaw. Aelin found herself unable to look away from him. This close, they were breathing the same air, his breath warm on her face. 

“Rowan,” she breathed, pulling his mouth down to hers.

It was hot, the tension between their bodies nearly palpable. It didn’t take long for him to grip her thighs and pin her against the door, her legs wrapping around his waist. The kiss was bitten lips and tangled tongues. He tasted like cinnamon whiskey and she wanted to get drunk on him. 

He managed to get the door open, kick it shut, and have her pinned against the wall inside the room in a matter of seconds. Every movement was rushed, Aelin’s hands pulling at his shirt until she threw it on the floor. His hands slid up her shirt and pushed it over her head. 

“Off, off, off,” he murmured against her neck, setting her down only long enough to pull her jeans and panties off her body in a quick movement.

They couldn’t get close enough fast enough, her fingers undoing his jeans until they dropped to the floor. His briefs followed soon after, and then he had her up against the wall again. Rowan’s mouth connected with the curve where her neck met her shoulder, sucking and biting at her skin until she knew there would be dark purple marks tomorrow. 

“Please,” she begged him, reaching her hand between them to take his length in her hand. He took the hint, pushing up into her in one swift movement. The feeling made her moan loudly, a moan that he caught with his mouth and returned in favor. 

They fucked hard against the wall, Rowan pounding into her over and over again. She couldn’t think, couldn’t breathe. It was almost too much to take in the best way, the feeling of him inside her. She whispered his name over and over into his mouth, dying to have him deeper, to have him faster and harder. 

“Fuck, Aelin,” he groaned, biting her throat in ways that sent heat straight between her legs. 

“Come for me,” she whispered against his mouth. “Please. Inside me. Please. Please.”

She didn’t stop begging until they both crashed over the edge, Rowan spilling inside her. When she rested her head back against the wall, he started pressing softer kisses down her throat and across her collarbones. She kept her fingers in his hair, combing through the strands softly. 

Aelin had just started to drop her legs from his waist when he caught her calves and shook his head. She let her legs tighten around his waist and he carried them over to the bed, laying her down gently. It was only then that he slipped out of her and smoothed his hand down her hair, fingers brushing her cheeks. 

When he kissed her, it was soft and slow, nothing like what they’d just done. It was loving, it was passionate. It was her favorite way that he kissed her– like she was everything to him, like she was all he’d ever wanted. He kissed her lips one more time before he sat up and started to stand. She took a moment to appreciate his ass, biting her lip before she sat up and caught his fingers. 

“Don’t go. Stay. Please?” Rowan turned to look at her. “I want you to stay.”

So he did. 


	17. Quick fix

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Quick quick quick fix  
Let it slip through my lipstick  
Think I can make you pop with no side effects, no guilt trips  
Heroin of our love is sinking relationships all night  
Quick Fix // Sofia Karlberg

When she woke up, he was gone.

She tried not to be too disappointed, they weren’t together or anything, but after he’d soothed her through a nightmare two nights ago, she thought he’d wanted to be more than passive aggressive exes that sometimes had sex. But maybe she’d been wrong.

Upon slipping out of bed, she stretched her still naked body and grabbed her stealth suit from where it hung on a hook by her bed. Before going out last night, she had hand-washed it. Being outside in Doranelle constantly, it was extra stifling. Stealthy she might be, but it was hot as hell despite how thin the fabric was, and she was only human.

When she arrived in the mess hall and grabbed breakfast, she dropped down into a seat across from Fenrys. She had just started to eat when Rowan slid into the chair next to her and his arm brushed against hers. She kept her face neutral, though she wanted to look at him and offer him a smile. His hair was still damp from the shower he’d taken and he smelled so good it took everything in her to not lean closer or lay her head on his shoulder.

Across the table, Fen was eyeing both of them with narrowed eyes: shifting from Rowan, then Aelin, then back again. Aelin, however, shifted slightly to look at Rowan who was lifting a mug to his lips.

“How was your walk of shame this morning?” Rowan spewed hot coffee all over the table, including onto Fenrys, who hissed and shot him a look of disgust as he grabbed napkins from the center of the table.

“Weren’t the two of you not speaking? Or — sorry, correction — you weren’t speaking to him and wouldn’t let him speak to you?” Rowan arched a brow and looked over to Aelin, obviously waiting for her to take the lead on that one.

“Perhaps we buried the hatchet like mature adults,” she said around a bite of an apple.

“Buried the hatchet my ass. The only thing that was buried was his dick in your vagina.” It was Aelin’s turn to start wildly choking on her food, Rowan patting her on the back somewhat aggressively to dislodge the apple.

“Gods above, Fen, do you have a filter?” A few people at nearby tables were watching them curiously because, apparently, elite warriors couldn’t chew their food.

~*~

The early morning sun was wide awake and beaming so bright that Aelin wish she could wear sunglasses during hand-to-hand combat. It was their last hand-to-hand group to train, and then they would start watching the groups fight each other. They would critique the groups’ forms and help them hone their craft into the perfect weapon: their bare hands.

Lorcan, Rowan, and Aelin had all killed people with their hands. People didn’t expect it from Aelin. Earlier in her military career, when she was nineteen, she had dealt with a captain in Skull’s Bay who had been downright angry to find out the whispers of an assassin queen were about a girl that was still technically a teenager. The girl hadn’t even been alive for two decades, yet she was already feared.

And they should have been scared. Aelin was a decently tall girl with long golden hair — it was truly golden — and the most intense eyes most people had ever seen: turquoise with an explosion of gold eyes in the middle of questioning. The man had been trying to bait her. Had been bringing up just about everything that might make a woman upset: her monthly bleeding, how women would never be equal to men, how she would never be respected the way a man was. On and on he went, annoying the hell out of her so much that she swiped the pen off the table and stabbed it into his neck, straight into his carotid. Blood had sprayed everywhere, and she’d left his dumb ass body in the basement of the warehouse. She didn’t have time to deal with stuff like that. She did what needed to be done, and it all paid off.

So today, when the idiots pulled the same I won’t hit a girl shit from last time, she called Rowan over again and decided she would show them what she was truly capable of. Both of them were armed, Rowan’s weapons mostly concealed and all of Aelin’s were hidden all over her body in the stealth suit.

The suit itself was skin tight and black. It was gross how many men were ogling the shape of her body in a lecherous way. They weren’t around women often, and several of the soldiers had attempted to talk to her; but she always found herself conveniently so, so busy and couldn’t go out for drinks. It was a vicious cycle.

The material of the suit was somewhat thin. It was thick enough that the weapons on her body were concealed without suspicion, but thin enough that she wouldn’t die of heat stroke on a mission.

Knives and daggers hid everywhere along her lean from: her thighs, her arms, her sides, her wrists. Those were her favorites, because they came with a flick of the wrist and then they were in her hands, their silver blades shining.

For some missions, she would wear a gun holster and have two pistols on her hip: one the typical pistol, and one with a silencer on the end. Just in case. Today, there were no guns on her body. Just all of the sharp weapons caressing her skin.

Rowan stood next to her and leaned over to say, “You could kill any of these men should they ever become enemies?”

“I would do anything to protect our country. Absolutely anything, except one.”

“What’s that?” He tilted his head to the side and licked his lips. It was hard for Aelin to focus with him so close, so intoxicating. She found herself sometimes wishing that he wasn’t so handsome.

“Taking you out,” she said quietly, unable to bring her eyes up to meet his.

He knew what she meant: that she would never take a mission to kill Rowan. Ever. She would end her own life before killing him. Aelin didn’t have time to gauge his reaction because one of the men said they wouldn’t hit a girl. It always made Aelin snort, as if they’d ever get a hit on her. So for the last training she would be even more challenging.

She and Rowan stalked each other for a moment until Aelin had had enough. She flicked her wrists and two daggers flew into her hands, but Rowan was just as quick, and Aelin wasn’t sure how. All of his weapons were concealed; she couldn’t place any of them on his body, but before she knew it he had one dagger in each hand as well.

She didn’t give him time to hesitate, immediately launching herself at him only for him to deflect every oncoming slash and swing with his daggers, blocking her arms with his forearms. In a move he hadn’t quite expected, she swung her leg up and nailed him in the side. She took the time of him staggering slightly to knock his daggers out of his hands, which only gave him an advantage because he gripped her foot and pushed her back and she tumbled to the ground. When she hit the ground she did a backwards roll and hopped back up to her feet, but he was already in front of her when she did. His punch to her jaw made her teeth sing and she knew she had lost the fight. He was too good.

“You asshole.” He merely grinned at her.

“Come on, Princess,” Rowan crooned, nodding his head up as if to tell her to come and get him.

So she did, the two making hit after hit until she managed, by some grace of the gods, to swipe his feet out from under him. Except it happened the same time he did it to her, and they both hit the ground, gasping for air as it was knocked completely from their lungs. Once they got their bearings both of them started to laugh, and Aelin beat him to sitting up as she straddled his waist and pinned his arms down.

“You were pulling your punches,” she said, a frown on her face.

He merely grinned and, with a shake of her head, she leaned down and gave him a quick peck on the lips before she stood and helped him to his feet. Aelin didn’t miss the way that his brow briefly furrowed— she didn’t know what that was about— but he brushed his fingers along her jaw where he had punched her. She turned back to the group with her hands clasped in front of her.

“You won’t get the honor of getting a kiss from me after I kick your ass, and if you pull your punches the way the Vice Admiral just did, I’ll kick it ten times harder.”

“Ma’am?”

“Yes?” Her eyes fell on a young man at the back of the group with fair hair and dark brown eyes.

“What is your rank so we can properly address you?”

“I’m Commander Galathynius” She swung a finger toward Lorcan. “The Admiral. Captain Gavriel Whiteheart; the Twins, Fenrys and Connell Moonbeam are both Lieutenants; and Vaughan Aspyn is a Lieutenant Commander. We tend to be lax about our rankings between us because we work so closely as a team. We don’t let our ranks compromise a mission because we get too hard headed about what might be right. Lorcan only pulls out the ‘I’m the admiral here’ bullshit when he’s tired of someone’s shit and wants them to step aside. It’s usually me giving him the headache,” she grinned, flashing them a wink.

When she gestured to the kid that had spoken moments ago, he stepped forward tentatively.

“You will not go easy on me because I’m a woman. You will fight me because I am the enemy coming to steal the most pertinent information from the center of your base and if I get out of this circle then just consider me out of Wendlyn. You will have compromised this base.”

By the end of their hand-to-hand combat training for the morning, nobody had beaten Aelin, but one trainee had grabbed her by the ankle and yanked her feet out from under her. There was already a pretty <strike>little</strike> big bruise kissing over her jaw from the impact with the ground and she would have been surprised to be told she didn’t have some sort of fracture. By the time she had slipped into her seat at the table, it was an ugly enough bruise at Vaughan had nodded at her appreciatively. Men.

“You do know what they’re calling you now, right?” Aelin looked up at Connall with her brow furrowed, shaking her head in confusion.

“It can’t be worse than fire breathing bitch queen,” she said with a pointed look at Lorcan. He was suppressing a shit-eating grin. There would never be a time, Aelin was sure, that Lorcan wouldn’t be proud to have coined the nickname.

“The black widow,” a voice said in her ear. Electric shocks jolted down her spine as Rowan pressed his lips to her neck just below her ear as he sat next to her, his fingers lightly assessing the bruise at her jaw while she gaped at the table.

“I’m not a superhero.”

“You do realize you’re basically the real life Black Widow, right?” Fenrys leaned forward on his elbows and even Lorcan nodded in agreement. “She didn’t have super powers either but shes didn’t need it. She rarely needs more than her bare hands. You rarely need more than that. You’re just dramatic and like the theatrics.”

“I’m still not a superhero.”

“Plus that suit you wear?” Rowan quipped in, arm slung over the back of her chair with the backs of his fingers rubbing up and down her forearm. Aelin shifted slightly to look at him. “Is so fucking hot.”

It was impossible to deny the laughter that took over her body as she shoved him, but he caught her knuckles and kissed them anyway.

~*~

“I wasn’t kidding about the suit,” he murmured against the nape of her neck.

Aelin made a sound low in her throat and tilted her head back and to the other side so that her hair tumbled just over his face. Rowan withdrew only long enough to push her hair from her upper back before beginning his new assault of kisses: hot, open-mouthed ones with his tongue leaving trails across her skin.

“Is that so?” She sounded too breathy, but judging by the way that his hands gripped her bare hips tighter, it was only fueling him more. The responding thrust into her had Aelin gasping in pleasure, unable to contain the ecstasy that always came from being with Rowan like this.

With predatory and feline grace, she ran her hands down her thighs and then over the bed, slowly stretching out. As her back reached a peak arch, as her fingers splayed then gathered the sheets up in her hands, she looked at Rowan over her shoulder with slightly parted lips and another moan whilst he pushed deeper into her. He let out a string of some of the filthiest curses she’d ever heard him say during sex with her, and she wanted to make him do it again.

“I want to take that godsdamn thing off you myself,” his voice was low and husky as he lowered his mouth to press scathing kisses along her spine. He paused when his head was resting against the back of her head to thrust into her a few times, one hand slipping around her waist to toy with her clit the whole time.

“I have to wear it tomorrow—”

“Then I’ll have it undone just enough that I can get you against one of these buildings, and get inside you. Just enough so that I can fuck you. Just enough so that my cum is leaking out of you while—” she didn’t hear the rest because she hurtled over the edge, his voice drowned out by the rushing in her ears and the screaming moan that erupted her lungs. She wasn’t quite finished when he flipped her over by her hips and connected their mouths, never ceasing his pace as he continued to go fast and fast until he was spilling inside of her.

“Rowan,” she whispered, trying to will her breathing to slow by counting their shared breaths, by counting the times their tongues looped around the other. “You’re going to kill me.”

“I’m going to kill you? You’re the one walking around in that damned suit all the time. No, calling you the black widow was absolutely perfect for you because you could bring any man on this base to their knees looking like that.” Aelin’s eyes rolled but she slipped her hands around his neck anyway.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“You’ll find out how ridiculous I am tomorrow when you’re walking around with my cum leaking out between your thighs tomorrow.” He’d flashes his teeth at her then and disappeared from bed, only to return to help clean her up and get her ready for bed.

~*~

He hadn’t been kidding. Not even a little. Because now. Her suit hastily zipped after he’d taken her against the rough wall of the indoor pool, she could literally feel his cum dripping down her thighs. It was the hottest thing she had ever felt.


	18. Wicked games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I never dreamed that I’d love somebody like you  
I never dreamed that I’d lose somebody like you  
Wicked Games // James Vincent McMorrow

Everyone else has been mildly annoyed to hear about what appeared to be some form of a civil war in Skull’s Bay. As big of a civil war as a civilization with little more than two hundred people could have, anyway. Aelin, however, was confused.

“Bullshit,” she’d said, squinting at the map like the name would change and show up where else on the map of Erilea. “This is a weird test or something right? Am I passing?”

“What …are you talking about? Lorcan asked her, rubbing his brow. The other guys were looking at her like she had two heads. Rowan was inspecting her as though running a mental checklist to ensure her health.

“My second year in, Sam and I were in the same platoon, and at that time we’d been on location in Skull’s Bay because of how the current Captain there was handling things. I ended up killing him, he had an active slave trade agreement with all sorts of places, he treated his civilians like complete garbage. So after I killed him, the military spent time to relocate the people of Skull’s Bay. And then Sam and I trashed the ports and watch towers before we left. There shouldn’t really be a Skull’s Bay anymore.”

That conversation had been two weeks ago, and Aelin now lay on her back staring at the blue-grey paint that covered the inside of the aircraft carrier. The Cadre had landed on the helipad mere hours ago and now most everyone, save for the working crew, was sleeping. The crew and Aelin, who just couldn’t let sleep claim her.

The sound of her feet dropping onto the steel flooring hardly registered, and she began her hike through the maze that was the lower level sleeping quarters of the T. S.S. Brannon aircraft carrier. She wound herself around and around until she found the series of ladders leading to hatch doors — she went through about six — before she crawled out onto a small opening with about a foot and a half on each side of the round door. There were more ladder rungs down the side of the ship, but Aelin simply laid down on her back and stared up at the crystal clear sky.

There were no clouds in the sky. The black expanse that was the universe was truly black today, not a cloudy gray or something of the like. Between each star the darkness was so impenetrable it was a wonder light was escaping at all — but it made for a more stunning view.

There were so many stars. Aelin never would have been able to count them all if she tried. Maybe she would later, if only to give her restless mind something to do. She honed all of her energy toward breathing, to focus on the humid air that filled her lungs and the universe around her. Sometimes she couldn’t believe that; despite all the pain that existed, pockets of the world still held so much flawless beauty. Laying under these stars was the same as looking into a sea of diamond fragments. Beautiful. Breathtaking. Impossible to ever see the same reflective night twice.

The hatch pushed open and Rowan folded his arms over the lip, propping his chin on his forearm. He reached out to run his fingertips down her jaw with a slight frown to his lips.

“Are you okay?” His voice was as soft as the fingers that caressed her cheek, and she nodded.

“Couldn’t sleep,” she said with a shrug, taking Rowan’s hand when he offered it to her.

“Let’s go,” was all he said, leading the way back down to the living part of the ship. When they finally reached his bunk, he hopped up into it first the tugged her up behind him. Aelin wasted no time in curling up against his side, her hand slipping halfway under his shirt to feel the warmth and strength of his body beneath her hands.

“What’s on your mind?” He asked finally, fingers running up and down the slight dip of her lower back. She shrugged. “Sam?” Aelin froze for a moment but nodded, adjusting her head on his chest.

“It gets easier every year. It did anyway. When I had you it was easier… but then I lost the baby and you and it got harder. And then I almost died for you and you left me. And now we’re…whatever this is. I don’t blame you for anything Rowan, I swear I don’t. I get it. You’re protecting yourself and protecting me. I understand it.” She wasn’t sure where she’d been going with her rant. There had been no end in mind when she’d started talking. Maybe it was just to let him know she understood and it was okay. “But you help,” she finally said quietly, her breathing leveling out. “You help.”

~*~

Dropping into the middle of a hostile situation was a lot different than hopping down into a field and shaking the hand of whatever notable person was there to greet you. The handful of assholes firing were little more than a nuisance hurting everyone they came in contact with, which was the first step of what the Cadre needed to do. Disarm the idiots and take them down, assess the rest of the ongoing war and negotiate peace after that.

The twins were a couple hundred feet to her left, Connall scouting while Fenrys worked the trigger and waited for numbers he’d need to fire. Vaughan and Gavriel were likely going to come up from the other side, while Aelin, Lorcan, and Rowan headed toward the sound of fire straight on. Lorcan staggered back when a shot hit his bulletproof vest in the chest, heaved a sigh. This was annoying to him.

“We don’t want to have to hurt you,” Rowan said, his voice loud and clear and calm. The weapons didn’t drop, but they did hesitate, falling a fraction of an inch before all three officers were charging at the group of eight militiamen. Before the enemy had time to raise their weapons and fire, they were disarmed. Aelin had her man on the ground, arm twisted up behind him painfully as she ground his face into the ground with her boot. She grinned.

~*~

“One room or two?” Lorcan was asking her and Rowan. He said one at the same time Aelin said two, and she didn’t look at him when Lorcan hesitantly grabbed a second room key from the keeper and handed it to Aelin. She hated that she’d let Rowan carry her bag right about now.

She let herself into her room and tossed the key onto the small table by the door, then spun and dropped onto the bed, legs flying into the air briefly. The exhaustion was almost overpowering, having been meeting with leaders from both sides all day to try to maintain enough peace to make it through the night and into tomorrow. So tired that she should have just gone with one room to save herself the heavy weight of Rowan’s gaze.

“Come here,” she finally said, holding her hand out. It took several beats but he eventually approached her and took her hand. Rowan sat down next to her on the bed, letting her lace their fingers together. She finally opened her eyes and curled onto her side as she brought their fingers up to graze his jaw. She sat up and pressed several soft kisses to his mouth. “I’m sorry about downstairs.”

“I shouldn’t assume,” he said, but his voice was flat. Almost empty and cold. Frowning, she kissed him again, wanting to kiss the ice away.

“Maybe, but I —“ She was cut off by his lips on hers and melted Aelin completely melted into his body. Rowan’s hands ran over her thighs and he hoisted her up onto his lap when he received a responding moan of approval.

This part had always been so easy. Their entire relationship, save for the rough years, had always been easy. But this? The physical intimacy? It was breathing. It was icy air after running through a desert. It was a cool shower on a hot and sticky day. It was water in the midst of dehydration, feast in the midst of famine.

It didn’t matter what kind of sex it was, whether it was slow and passionate or fast and hard, it was always slammed with so much emotion it felt damn near overwhelming. The Gods had always planned for them to be together, she’d decided long ago. Being with anyone else had always felt wrong. Even when she had been with Sam, it hadn’t ever felt the way that being with Rowan did. Being with Rowan was something else entirely. Most days she wasn’t sure she believed in universe given soulmates, but what she had with Rowan would have been the closest to it. Being with Rowan… it made her believe in magic. It made her believe in the myths and legends, in fairytales and lands of cotton candy dreams.

As much as it made her believe in all that was good and pure in the world, it always made her believe in the lands of nightmares, in all the things that went bump in the night. Aelin had experienced it first hand, that when there were things pure and beautiful in the world, there were always things just as dark and damning. Their relationship had proof of both the daydreams and the nightmares.

Somehow, though, they always found their way back here. Their way back tangled up in the other with breathy moans filling the air. If they were good at anything, it was at getting back here with their hearts syncopating and their breathing ragged. None of it mattered, not when they could fall back into each other like this at the end of the day. Yes, they needed to talk. Yes, there were things that needed to be worked out. But this was all they needed to come back down from the stress of the day. From the anxiety that their job or relationship brought. Later, they would talk. Later, they would sort everything out. For now it was the close proximity that kept them high off the other, that kept the world of nightmares at bay.

Rowan cursed as he rolled onto his back next to her, tan skin covered in a sheen of sweat. His thumbs brushed her thighs while he took deep breaths to bring himself down, to level himself out. He was using her as an anchor. An anchor to tie him to the room, to the earth, to the universe.

Aelin shifted to sit up on one elbow, her fingers combing through his hair. She leaned over and pressed soft kisses to his temple, his forehead, his nose. Sometimes she would be content to just lay with him like this until she died. Tangled up in him, fingers in his hair. The way that she felt for him threatened to ruin her completely most of the time. She was so in love with him that it hurt — but Rowan had drawn that line in the sand months and months ago when he walked away from her to keep them both safe.

The last few months, though, had been more complicated. The lines were more blurred than they’d ever been. Half the time it was love and affection like they were together again, other times it was strictly sex. Some days she felt so frustrated with him that all they did was bicker. They’d had one of those days last week that had ended in explosive hate sex that had been so good Aelin hadn’t been able to get out of bed the next day well into the afternoon.

“Will you stay?” She asked him, more than aware that her asking for two bedrooms earlier was even dumber now that she wanted him to sleep in the same bed as her. Aelin had just began to press another soft kiss to Rowan’s mouth when he pushed himself to sit up, his hands rubbing his face roughly. Her hand ran up his strong back, her lips leaving a trail of soft kisses over his shoulder. The way she sat, one of her legs was behind him, the other draped over his lap while her arms snaked around his waist.

“Baby? What’s wrong?” She was frowning, fingers tracing the defined lines that made up his abdomen. Rowan braced one of his hands on her thigh and loosed a breath. Whatever was running through his head was plaguing him so severely that it was setting off every one of Aelin’s own alarms.

“Aelin I’m…fine with being whatever you want me to be. I’m fine with just having sex with you all godsdamn night if that’s what you want and that’s what you want from me but mother above, please just tell me that’s all it is. I can’t keep doing this back and forth bullshit where I don’t know what you want from me. I know I’m the one that walked away, Gods I know. But some days we feel like we used to and others you can’t stand me and today you’re somewhere in between. I don’t mind being this for you. I really don’t. But please, please, Ace. The one thing I’m asking from you is that you don’t pretend that it’s anything other than it is. That this means anything to you other than sex.”

“Ro—“ But he shook his head as he brought her hand to his lips. Rowan dropped the softest of kisses to her palm, then one to her forehead.

“I’ll see you in the morning, love,” he said softly. Aelin watched silently as he dressed and slipped out of the bedroom.

She loved him so much it hurt.

He just never let her finish talking to tell him so.


End file.
